
i( 



Cl;ristinniti| tlir ^rrfrrtau nf f rtin J^nnliurss. 



CHRISTIANITY 



THE PEKFECTION OF 



TRUE MANLINESS 



REV. E?'^H?"^CHAPIN. 



NEW YORK: 
HENRY LYON, 548 BROADWAY. 

AUBURN :~V. KENYON, 96 GENE3EE-STREET. 

1856. 



^^p 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year One Thousand Eight Hnn- 
dred and Fifty-four, by HENRY LYON, in the Clerk's Office of the Di». 
trict Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. 



^^^^./^//ij 



A. CUNNINGHAM, 

STBKKOTYPBn, 

If 3 William-ftreet, New- York. 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 



The first four of the following lectures were 
especially addressed to young men ; but it is 
believed that the important lessons inculcated, and 
the earnest and eloquent manner in which they 
are urged, will interest and profit all who peruse 
them. 

The lecture on the " Moral signifioance of 
THE Crystal Palace," was delivered from brief 
notes, and not written out by the author. It is 
here given as reported in the l^ew York Daily 
Times. 

Some readers will recognize the lecture on 
"The Philosophy of Reform," and the suc- 
ceeding discourses, as old acquaintances. But 
the volume containing them has been for some 
time out of print, and it was judged best to 



VI PUBLISHERS PREFACE. 

issue them in connection witli the original lec- 
tures contained in this publication. 

The present volume is sent out in confidence 
that it will be received with favor by those 
who desire the advancement of Christian prin- 
ciples, that it " will accomplish its share of 
good, and aid in the upbuilding of God's king- 
dom on earth and in the human soul." 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. YlCE 9 

II. The Advantages of City Life - - 37 

III. The Claims of the Time upon Young Men 59 

IV. Christianity the Perfection of True Man- 

liness 83 

V. Moral Significance of the Crystal Pal- 
ace 105 

VI. The Philosophy of Reform - - - 125 

VII. The True Ground of Christian Union - 157 

VIII. Intolerance 173 

IX. The "Work of Chistianity in the Human 

Soul 195 



CHRISTIANITY 

THE 

PERFECTION OF TRUE MANLINESS. 

I. 

VICE. 

Abusers of themselves, with mankind. 

1 Cor. vi. 9. 

I PROPOSE to address three or four discourses to 
young men. I do not intend to present a minute 
list of vices, virtues, and accomplishments. Nor 
even upon the range of topics which I have 
selected for discussion, shall I attempt a complete 
series. Nor will there be any special connection 
between these discourses. But I propose to speak 
upon a few general subjects, snatched miscellane- 
ously from the suggestions of the times, and with 
which those whom I address have peculiar rela- 
tions. Surelv, there are none whose position is 
I* 



10 CHEISTIANTTY THE PERFECTION OF 

more critical, or upon whose attention great truths 
sliould be more diligently nrged. I speak to them, 
therefore, with the hope and the prayer that they 
may be aroused to consider the application, and 
to heed the claims of these truths. 

Without further preface, then, I enter upon the 
subject of the present discourse. That subject is 
VICE. I employ the term not, perhaps, according 
to its strict, ethical definition, but in its popular 
sense of gross indulgence. And, in the first place, 
let me show the pi'oprieti/ of the topic — the fitness 
of the theme to the class which I am now address- 
ing. 

Although vice is but too common in almost 
every stage of human life, young men, especially, 
are apt to be its votaries. For to them all things 
are new, and their perception as yet is superficial. 
The oldest sins, sins of which men have sickened 
and died for six thousand years, wear all the 
charm and freshness of novelty. The intellect is 
active to the highest degree, but it is not yet med- 
itative and discriminating. In the midst of solici- 
tous appetites and rapid passions, conscience speaks 
indistinctly. They mistake hardihood for manli- 
ness, and license for liberty. Theirs is the confi- 
dence of untried strength, and the impatience of 
undisciplined will. Therefore, theirs are the time 
and the temperament for excess. Adventure, 



TRUE MANLINESS. 11 

excitement, indulgence without regard to its char- 
acter jumps with their humor — it corresponds with 
the jubilant play of their senses, and of the world. 
Their animal spirits sparkle like the wine, and the 
rattling dice seems a part of the glorious hazard 
of life. 

IS^ot only, however, do the age and the disposi- 
tions of young men render a discourse on Yiee 
peculiarly appropriate, but we should, also, con- 
sider that theirs is chiefly the season o^ prevention. 
If" a career of guilty indulgence is to be averted 
at all, it must be averted now ; for it is yet the 
seed-time of habit. If intemperance,- licentious- 
ness, or any kindred sin, takes possession of them, 
it will do so now ; for men in their latter days, or 
even in middle-life, rarely conxmence a vicious 
course. It cannot be denied, too, that in some 
respects a vicious old age aiFords a more melan- 
choly spectacle than youthful immorality. For 
those associations whicli usually render a man 
in his declining years an object of tender solicitude 
and of reverential love, in such a case make 
depravity more vividly hideous. Then the gray 
hairs which might be a crown of glory, become 
seals of shame, and that venerable composure and 
simplicity which seem such a fitting posture for 
the final sleep, is ruffled by impotent passions, and 
dish )nored by self-inflicted wounds. We are as- 



12 CHRISTIANITY THE rEKFECTlON OF 

tonished at the sight of nerveless infamy and 
decrepit lust. It makes us sick at heart to see the 
limbs that stoop so near the earth shaking witli 
the tremor of indulgence, and the eyes whose 
feeble vision should be lifted heavenward, blinded 
with the filthy rheum of debauch. It appals us 
that one who for threescore years and ten has 
experienced the goodness of his Maker, should use 
the accents of his faltering voice to defile that 
name with blasphemy ; that he who knows how 
much purity there is, even yet, in life, should to 
the very last maintain such an example to infect 
its sanctities ; and that, while it should seem most 
men would grow solemn at least, when those great 
shadows are thickening upon their heads, he 
should mock them Avith his toothless laughter, 
and, gathering curses about him like a garment, 
stagger headlong into the gates of death. 

But such a spectacle only makes more painful 
the feelings with which w^e must regard a dissipa- 
ted young man. For in connection with fine 
powers enslaved, generous impulses perverted, and 
rich opportunities frittered away — the very bloom 
of life tarnished, and cankering at the roots — that 
spectacle suggests the inevitable results of such a 
career. Moreover, as one of the saddest facts 
connected with the old man's depravity is itshope- 
Ipssness-^for though even in his case it is not too 



TRUE manlinp:ss. 



13 



late to repent, yet we can cherish but faint expec- 
tation of snch a result — is it not with intense 
anxiety that we behold the young man drifting 
into that relentless current while yet there is hope, 
while yet there are so many channels for brave 
endeavor and for good achievement? Or if we 
feel that the one picture is no more mournful than 
the other, yet in the case of the young man is 
there not a subject of zeal and of earnest diligence, 
which is not proffered by the other instance? 
Of all spectacles, is not that one of alarm and 
sorrow when a young man is trampling the fairest 
hopes of life beneath his feet ? Of all times, is 
not that a time to speak of vice when those hopes 
hang trembling in a balance ? 

But, again, I speak especially to that portion of 
young men who live in a great city. Undoubtedly, 
the secret springs of vice are to be found in our 
own moral nature, and it breaks out under all 
circumstances. But it needs no argument to show 
that its incentives and opportunities are peculiarly 
powerful in a metropolis like this. Indeed, this is 
so palpably true that it is a serious question 
whether large cities are not more injurious than 
beneficial. I cannot, without qualification, take 
the affirmative of this question. I cannot say, 
with some, that great cities are a necessary evil, 
■ and serve tlie body-politic as the cutaneous issues of 



14 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

a disease that would otlierwise inflame the whole 
fabric. But while here are assembled the best 
results of tlie time, and the ripest fruits of civili- 
zation ; while liere art, literature, and religion 
may find their most powerful allies and resources ; 
while here is the inlet of a nation's wealth, and 
the depot of its skill, the main artery of com- 
merce, and the magnetic chamber of communica- 
tion with the world ; here, also, is concentrated 
all that ministers to human passions. In the first 
place, here is all that makes the senses supreme, 
fanning the higher nature of man into an easy 
sleep. Here the four quarters of the globe pour 
their luxuries to solicit and pamper appetite. One 
may pass through these streets as through a living 
cosmorama — a reduced scale of the actual and 
manj-zoned earth. Here are Canton and Cuba, 
Cashmere and Hudson's Bay ; Golconda sparkles 
side by side with the fabrics of France and Eng- 
land, and the fruits of palm-shaded islands cluster 
about the vintage of the Bhine. In the country 
there are recesses for repose, there is a stillness 
which invites and almost forces meditation. But 
in town all meditation is far outrun by excited per- 
ception. There is a perpetual access of objects 
and of tidings. Everywhere there is the glitter 
of fascination, the spice and charm of novelty. 
Doubtless, those who will, can find hours for 



TRUE MANLINESS. 15 

retirement and places for serious thought, made 
all the more deep and secluded by the very con- 
trast. But I speak of the young man thrown into 
this bustling hive when peculiarly impressible 
by outward things, and I say that for him the 
metropolis in its daily aspects and contacts minis- 
ters especially to the senses. 

And, in the next place, this of course keenly 
touches the passions. The idea of sensual good 
becomes paramount, and is sought in sensual in- 
dulgence. And as for the pampering of the body 
so for the passions, the city affords the most varied 
field. Here, as into a huge reservoir, empty all 
the influences of temptation. Here troop the nim- 
ble agents of iniquity. Here immorality puts forth 
all its devices, and wears its most novel shapes. 
Here either downright depravity, or those necessi- 
ties against which some will nobly strive, prompts 
many to guilty resources, and invention is con- 
tinually at work to provoke the jaded appetite, 
and to ensnare the half-scrupulous will. Here 
voluptuousness, ever refining, ever acquires a more 
subtile and fatal sting. Here literature becomes 
the pimp of lust, and art debases itself that the 
infernal falsehood of sin may glow with pictured 
beauty. And here, then, flourishes vice in all its 
circles — from those splendid saloons and dainty 
shapes wher fashion presides, to those nether hells 



IG CHKISTIANFIY TIIK PKRFECTION OF 

uhere tlie depravities of tlie human heart assume 
their grossest embodiment, and where they simmer 
promiscuously together without conceahnent and 
without shame. 

True, it might be argued that if here the solici- 
tors of vice arc so numerous and so successful, 
here too are accumulated the most striking illus- 
trations of its consequences — here are " the wages 
of sin" in every degree. And, no doubt, if his 
mind and heart were rightly prepared, in no way 
could the young man be taught the horror of 
iniquity so impressively as by those living exam- 
ples which abound in a large aiiy. Here w'S 
might lead him through every ward of the moral 
lazar-house, and show him all the gradations of 
guilt and the inevitable series of retribution. 
Here we might exhibit the very counterpart of 
himself, fresh, vigorous, hopeful, just halting upon 
the threshold of sinful indulgence. We njight 
show him the first blush of shame, the first smart 
of bodily remonstrance, the first drowsy recollec- 
tion of guilt, and the quick rebuke of a yet un- 
seared conscience ; and then pass with him through 
all those galleries of woe, those chambers of indul- 
gence, becoming more tarnished and desolate as 
we proceed, those ever-growing shapes of gross- 
ness — that thickening atmosphere of poison, those 
wasted forms of disease, those unappeasable appe- 



TRUE irA^-LI^-EG5. IT 

titeSj those wrecks of everything human, down to 
the moral leper with hope long vanished and 
respectabilities scattered far behind, despised, 
loathed, forgotten, — a carrion-lump, gasping for 
vital air, and rotting to death. jSTo argument can 
be so convincing, no description so effective, as 
this living history unfolded in the great city every 
day, would the young man only heed it. 

But now, when we see so many of this class 
turning from the freshness of boyhood, from the 
guidance and prayers of parents and all the sanc- 
tities of their village-home, with hearty resolve 
and hopeful look, toward the city, the centre of 
their dreams, the magic world of their destiny, 
and plunging into its mighty vortex ; when we 
think of them, not merely as the seekers of an 
honorable fortune, but as the necessary agents of 
commercial enterprise, the builders of national 
greatness, the channels of the future ; and yet, 
while maintaining those relations, so urgently be- 
set by the temptations to which I have alluded, 
and so often falling under them, must we not 
regard them with all that painful interest which 
attaches to martyrs ? Nay, often they are martyrs 
— the martyrs of enterprise, foiled in reaching 
their El-Dorado by no polar seas or mountain- 
storms, perishing in no cause of duty or sacred 
resolve, but dying of their own folly, and of the 



18 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

vices that solicit them in the life of the great 
city. 

But permit me to mention one other element 
-which adds to the peculiar power of vice in large 
cities. I would say, then, there is such a facility 
here, not merely because the senses are so for- 
cibly appealed to, and the passions so skilfully 
touched, but because the idolatry of business is so 
intense. No doubt work is one of the noblest 
duties ; but it is not the sole duty. It is well 
enough, perhaps, to glorify it, but in our times we 
absolutely deify it. Everything must yield to its 
iron pressure, no matter what claim it oversweeps, 
what good it crushes or hinders. Is there a min- 
istry of art, an appeal of humanity, a call of reli- 
gion ? It is well enough, perhaps, in its secondary 
place, but it must stand aside for this prime 
interest. Is there a mansion venerable with asso- 
ciations of antiquity ? Tear it down, and build up 
stores. Is there an old oak, dripping with the 
dew of ages ? Cut it in pieces for steamboat fuel. 
Is there a cataract that God has poured from the 
hollow of His hand to waken the pulses of sub- 
limity within us ? Convert it into a factory-privi- 
lege. In short, we act as though earth w^ere only 
a field for corn and oil, as though we were chained 
exclusively to material necessities, as though we 
had within us no higher faculties than those for 



- TRUE MANLINESS. 19' 

secular labor, as though business were an end and 
not a means. We work without respite, as though 
each one inherited the doom of Sysiphus. Heaven's 
air is smothered with this cotton atmosphere. The 
music of higher truths, appealing to our souls, is 
deadened by this utilitarian jar and bustle. And 
in a great city this extravagant idea of business 
finds its most intense expression. 

Now, of course, I do not deny the importance 
and the benefits of business. But it holds too 
exclusive a place in city life and in our American 
ideal. We not only say " Business first, and plea- 
sure afterwards," but, virtually, we too often say, 
'^Business first, and religion afterwards, culture 
afterwards, brotherly-love afterwards." But even 
in respect to the first axiom — " Business first, and 
pleasure afterwards," — should that always be main- 
tained % Suppose we define pleasure in its largest 
and best sense ; then surely that axiom is not 
always correct, and, what is more directly to the 
present purpose, I believe that an undue regard to 
it is one great cause of the prevalence of vice. If 
men should withdraw a portion of their time from 
business, and devote it to intellectual culture, to 
fresh communion with nature, to social amenities, 
as well as innocent recreations, they would be far 
less given to gross indulgences. As it is, so little 
room is left" for recreation of any kind, that the 



20 CHRISTIANITY THE I'EEFECTION OF 

overtasked mind and body seek some frivolous 
amusement, some sensual opiate or excitement, as 
the only thing suited to their mood. And this 
false notion of enjoyment, springing up in the 
neglect of higher sources of pleasure, may be set 
down as another cause of vice in large cities. In 
saying — " Business first, and pleasure afterwards," 
— we betray a superficial conception of pleasure, 
and,* therefore, when the young man stops his busy 
hands, that is the kind of pleasure which he is apt 
to seek. It is hardly necessary to add, by the way, 
that the notion that all recreation is wrong has 
itself a vicious influence. For the young man 
must have recreation of some kind, and if no dis- 
tinction is drawn between the kinds of recreation, 
but all arc condemned as wrong, he will be likely 
to adopt the most sensual, considering the one no 
worse than the other. A clear recognition of the 
character and claims of the recreation, we may 
believe would be a strong barrier against vicious 
indulgence. 

In thus indicating the sources of vice, I have 
endeavored to suggest arguments against it. I 
will now, however, pass to the second division of 
my remarks, that I may urge these arguments more 
directly. Among the multitude of these, how- 
ever, I must make a selection ; and, therefore, at 
present, I shall confine myself to a discussion of 



TKUK MANLINESS. 21 

the intrinsio nature and tendencies of vice. There 
is a passage in the Book of Proverbs which illus- 
trates the character and effects of vice in a striking 
manner. It concludes the wise man's account of 
the drunkard. After describing him as one who 
lies down in the midst of the sea, or upon the top 
of a mast, he adds — " They have stricken me, 
shalt thou say, and I was not sick ; they have 
beaten me, and I felt it not : when shall I awake ? 
I will seek it yet again." This description applies 
to vice in all its forms. First, it exhibits the 
debasing nature of vice. Under its debasing in- 
fluences one becomes as lost to feeling, interest, 
and self-respect, as the inebriate who, though 
stricken, is not sick ; who though beaten, feels it 
not. And yet, with all this, there is a vague sense 
of degradation, of alienation from the right course, 
which haunts him like thoughts in a dream, and 
which at times breaks into a more vivid conscious- 
ness, and the jaded spirit cries out, " When shall 
I awake?" But the spell of appetite once coiled 
about the soul, this momentary consciousness 
grows faint, the weak resolution gives way, the 
spirit of indulgence assumes its dominion, and the 
slave of vice exclaims — " I will seek it yet again." 
These three points I now propose to illustrate. 

I. Consider the debasing nature of vice. I have 
not time to present all the expressions of this fact; 



22 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

and, indeed, can suggest but a few of them. But, 
speaking in general terms, I observe that this is 
the essential evil of vice — it debases a man. It is 
a self-inflicted injury. Of course it quenches the 
highest spiritual sanctities, that purity of moral 
principle, that vivid sense of duty and of God, 
which is inseparable from all true virtue. But 
besides these, it destroys, so to speak, the manhood 
of a man. It steals from him the glorious prero- 
gative of self-dominion. Nothing, perhaps, is 
more common than for a man who is abandoned 
to self-indulgence to boast of his liberty ; to exult 
in the riot of license. But at the same time noth- 
ing is more sure than that he is the most pitiable 
of slaves. The drunkard brags of his freedom 
with a tongue that he cannot control and with a 
thirst that drives him to his cups. The gamester 
throws off the restraints of reason and of affection, 
but only because the fascination of the hazard is 
too potent for his better convictions. The libertine 
spurns the code of virtue, but he cannot escape 
the meshes of pollution. Now, true freedom con- 
sists not merely in the ability to do but in the 
power to refrain from doing, and the latter power 
the votary of vice does not possess. He may 
attempt to cover his moral impotence with hardi- 
hood or with sophistry, but this shows either that 
the love of vicious habits is strong enough to super- 



TRUE MAXLIKEBS. 23 

sede all considerations of public opinion and self- 
interest, or else to blunt bis spiritual perceptions 
so tbat be cannot distinguish good from evil. In 
either case, tbe essential fact remains — tbat bis 
true manhood is gone, bis higher nature is dis- 
crowned, he is in thraldom to an absorbing passion ; 
and such a man, I repeat, is the most abject of 
slaves. For, what is freedom of will, if a man is 
drawn as by magnetic fascination in one onward 
path of ruin over the dearest good of others and 
of his own soul ? What is bare liberty of move- 
ment, if a man is charmed into the delusion of 
denying all that is best in his nature, sacrificing 
bodily health, mental vigor, moral integrity, and 
clothing himself with rags? Who does not won- 
der at the infatuation with which a man will cast 
himself over the precipice of destruction, will do 
mean acts and criminal deeds ; from which a mind 
in the most ordinary moral health would shrink 
with terror and disgust ? Who does not wonder 
at the facility with which many a man will do all 
this, whose disposition was originally noble and 
generous, when once the master-influence sways 
him? Who does not recognize in all the Proteus 
forms of this infatuation the one essential evil of 
vice — its inward insult and injury? Who does 
not feel that the slave, chained, and driven to his 
task, is more free, because his is still the liberty of 



24 CHRISTLVNITY THE PERFECTION OF 

moral effort and the glory of spiritual rectitude. 
But with awful suggestion the Savior says — '• If 
the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is 
that darkness." 

But, again, let me suggest the injury which vice 
does to the best feelings of our nature. We may 
say — " It is true this man has not much self-con- 
trol ; but then, he is a man of quick sympathies — 
he has a good heart." But, after all, it may be 
doubted whether this qualification is really de- 
served. If that man is given over to vicious 
indulgence, it is more than doubtful whether he 
retains, if he ever possessed, the finest sensibilities. 
It is difficult to believe that a true gentleman will 
ever become a gamester, a libertine, or a sot. The 
amenity and self-respect which characterize him 
when he is himself, will, it is likely, prevent him 
from becoming anything else than himself. But 
if he should lapse into a bad habit, however rare 
his accomplishments or polite his usual bearing, 
changed as he is to the jovial rowdy who goes 
whooping through the streets at midnight^ or to 
the pugnacious blackguard, we shall find that his 
gentility is fast dying out. Indeed, vice is essen- 
tially vulgar. It contaminates all that it capti- 
vates. Take either of the leading vices, and con- 
sider, for a moment, how impossible it is for a 
man to indulge it without deadening his sensibil' 



TRUE MANLINESS. ' 25 

ties ; for at the centre of all vice there exists a 
hard selfishness that will absorb all things in its 
own gratification. The libertine in his schemes 
sacrifices all gentleness and sanctit}^, insults his 
mother's honor and his sister's purity, and treats 
virtue as a mock-ideal. The drunkard in his in- 
fatuation brutalizes home, violates every affection, 
and reddens the hearthstone with his children's 
blood. But especially is the hardening influence 
of vice demonstrated in the career of the game- 
ster. Enter, to-night, any of his haunts, and see 
in every lineament and motion the expression of a 
flinty selfishness. See the vulture eye, watching 
the chances of the game, and the cold exultation 
with which he clutches his luck. What cares he 
that the stake which now lies against his upon 
the table is the last his adversary can throw 
down — that it was raised, perhaps, upon a locket 
of a dead child's hair, a miniature of his father, 
his mother's Bible — that it was wrenched from the 
grasp of starving children — that it is the wages of 
a weary, heart-broken wife ? What cares he that, 
even now, those pale faces are brooding in despair 
over the cheerless hearth, and that upon their 
heads will be emptied the pent-up wrath which his 
success has now kindled ? ISTay, what cares he 
that his own home is desolate, that he is a truant 
from all the duties of life, that the lamp-light 



2G CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFECTIOK OF 

glimmers late and low on the brows of those near- 
est to him, weeping, and it may be, dA'ing? Ko 
doubt realities like these might meet ns in the 
haunts to which I now allude ; at least, realities 
showing full as much deadness of sensibility ; and 
yet we should find that these same heart-steeled 
men entered uj^on this career with feelings as 
tender and affections as genial as the young now 
before us, some of whom may be standing upon 
the threshold of the same destiny. 

Whatever may be felt, then, in the flow of bac- 
chanalian conviviality, or the heated impulses of 
boon-companionship, vice is essentially injurious 
to the finer feelings of our nature. Its dropping 
influences petrify the hardest heart. It is really 
dissocial, for, rotting all other ties, it retains 
nothing but self^ — it is, in fact, the sin of self. 
He who has looked at Hogarth's picture of "The 
Harlot's Funeral," has seen a vivid illustration of 
these tendencies. The careless group, the maud- 
lin laughter, the insensate debauchery, in the 
very chamber of death, and around the coflin of 
departed shame ! 

But I will present one more illustration of the 
debasing influence of vice, which shows that " in 
lowest deeps there is a lower still." I mean that 
depth in which a man loses all feeling for hitn- 
self i in which he cares not what degradation 



TKUE MANLINESS. 27 

clings to him, or what insnlt is piled upon him. 
Indeed, in the very outset of a vicious career, a 
man must have acquired, to a certain extent, this 
carelessness of self. He does not heed inevitable 
bodily or moral consequences. But I refer now, 
especially, to that stage of stupor and bluntness, 
Avlien all the edge of sensibility is worn off, when 
a man scarcely knows what he does, and cares not 
what others do to him ; when that last prop of 
virtue is broken down, that last glimmer of hope 
quenched — self-resjject. When he is a football 
for his fellow-men, and a jest to himself. When 
he chuckles at his own infamy. And it seems to 
me if no other consideration will check the young 
man entering upon the career of vice — if moral 
convictions, if the dictates of reason and affection, 
if the thought of reputation and of health, will 
not do so — this spectacle to be witnessed in so 
many instances ; the spectacle of a man uncon- 
scious of his own shame, and sucking delight 
from his own degradation ; this mean, idiotic, 
drivelling end to which vice inevitably tends, 
must arrest his steps^ and turn him back. Ah ! 
how great the folly, as well as the sin, of that 
man who is an abuser of himself. 

IL The second consideration which I would 
offer in regard to vice, is, that moral consciousness 
which generally accompanies it. Sometimes this 



28 ciiitiSTiAxnY THE rEEFKcnox of 

breaks out even among tliose brutalized concep- 
tions to which I have just alluded. In such 
moments he rouses up v^ith a sense of strangeness, 
of having drifted away from all right latitudes ; 
of being enslaved and soul-sick. And I observe 
that while in this arousing consciousness there 
may be an element of hope, there must be an 
abiding agent of miser}-. ISTo doubt a worse con- 
dition absolutely than this is ignorance of our 
moral state ; a condition in which sin has become 
our vital atmosphere, and evil our only good. 
But so far as mere feeling is concerned, to the 
slave of vice himself such a state would be com- 
parative bliss, or at least a paralytic repose, com- 
pared with that terrible sense of degradation 
which will at times force itself upon him. Yet it 
is a beneficent though awful law, that with guilt 
shall co-exist the consciousness of guilt ; now 
smothered and forgotten, but now flashing out 
and shooting through the soul with spires of tor- 
ment. It is like the return of sensation to one 
limb of a frozen man. There is not only a sharp 
agony, but the perception of a yet torpid body, 
the numb consciousness of injury and danger. 
The lack of such a consciousness would perhaps 
be more deadly, but this awakened sense is more 
painful. Nay, what is bodily pain, or any ordi- 
nary grief, compared with this woe? In the com- 



TRUE MANLINESS. 5iy 

moil afflictions of life, which descend alike upon 
the evil and the good, there are considerations 
which are well calculated to abate their sting and 
soothe our sorrow. There is the sympathy of 
others sweetly mingling with our bitter draught. 
There is the great idea of Providence begetting 
resignation and a lofty patience. But the vicious 
man is pierced with the dreadful thought of self- 
injury. He perceives that his loss and anguish 
are his own work. As he moves along in the 
crowd, despised and neglected ; as he lies broken 
down by the way-side, and lower in estate than 
the brute, he realizes that his own perversity has 
cut him off from the sympathies of his fellows, 
and thrown him upon their charity. And, as he 
considers the powers which God gave him, and 
the privileges which he has abused, he cannot 
cast his burden upon Providence. If through the 
melancholy sunshine of idiocy there should break 
a gleam of true intelligence, the idiot would at 
least feel no self-rebiike, for that simmering brain, 
that sad, pleased, worthless life. But what shall 
he say who has dissolved the priceless pearl of 
intellect in the wine-cup of debauch ; who has 
sacrificed, yes, deliberately murdered every men- 
tal gift, and made himself an idiot ? The blind 
man may feel at times that his privation is insup- 
portable, and mourn the blank that has come 



30 CnRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

between him and tlie beautiful earth and sky ; 
yet, within, there may be " a light which no 
calamity can darken," the scenery of a happy 
memory, and the vernal freshness of an nnviola- 
ted conscience. But what shall he say who has 
killed the optic nerve of his own soul, and 
quenched his moral eye-sight ? "We lament the 
dear friend snatched from ns by death, yet as we 
scatter blossoms above his grave, our thoughts 
grow fragrant with the recollection of his vir- 
tues, and, amidst the mystery of the dispensation, 
religion springs up to strengthen and awe us. 
But what of him, the worn-out libertine, the soul- 
sick epicure ; the drunkard, who, while he might 
have acted nobly with the living, folds himself in 
the cerements of the grave, and walks by choice 
among the charnels of the dead? This, then, is 
the inseparable curse of vice, that, sometimes, in 
the midst of its protracted dream, the victim 
becomes conscious of himself, wakes to a night- 
mare perception, sees enough to know that he is 
in a delusion, into which he has drugged himself 
— and that thought is the bitterest of all. There, 
too, is the revival of memory, instantly throwing 
open the doors of the past, letting him see for the 
moment what he was, and what he might have 
been. There is the sense of hopelessness, the 
sense of drifting into a swift current, with the 



TRUE MANLINESS. 31 

wish to escape destruction, and yet with the fear 
to try. These, and perhaps profounder revela- 
tions of the hour, the thought of God, and the 
reproach of neglected obligations — help wake up 
the vivid consciousness of him who starts at times 
from the insensibility of his career. 

Yice, then, is not only debasing in its charac- 
ter, but it does not permit the peace even of 
moral torpor. It is not an unbroken stupefaction. 
It is not the persistent, soggy, rotting away of a 
man. These higher faculties of ours will not die 
without a struggle and an uj^heaval — they cannot 
die at all. Therefore, vice is convulsive. Ever 
and anon, a man is shaken out of his sleep, and 
the drov/sy envelopments of his soul are rent as 
by a flash of lightning. And this is retribution. 
At least it is the pungent and living element of 
retribution. For although, as I have said, the 
worse consequence of evil may really be the abso- 
lute ignorance of evil, still the most painful is this 
intermittent consciousness of good neglected and 
of evil preferred; of good in its excellence and 
evil in its vileness, and yet the one receding from 
us and the other coiled about us. 

Can I, then, present a stronger argument 
against vice, than to urge this consciousness, that 
mournful, solemn feeling, which steals in, in 



32 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

times of temporary self-recovery, of loneliness 
and of desolation? 

III. Finally, let me urge the fact, that vice 
exerts an almost irresistible and ever-increasing 
fascination over its victims. I have already said, 
that although the consciousness of evil, just allu- 
ded to, is pregnant with misery, it also contains 
an element of hope. A sense of evil is pre-requi- 
site to any struggle against it. Its bitterness is 
medicinal. But too often, this awakening con- 
sciousness, instead of inducing reformation, sub- 
sides into a still lower moral state. The demon- 
passion, exorcised in a moment of reflection and of 
terror, returns stronger and more malignant than 
ever. The halting resolution sallies back upon 
the old habit. There has been a period when, 
perhaps, the aroused debauchee, stung into a 
sense of manliness, has said — " I Avill be a slave 
no more. I will break from this thraldom. Long 
and terrible though the struggle may be, I will 
reform ; I will once more be myself." But alas I 
how soon does appetite revive, quenching all the 
glow of this resolution ! How does the strained 
purpose relax ? How does the sluggish will plead 
to be undisturbed ; and still intending to wake, 
but postponing the good hour, tlie old vice 
assumes all its charm, and the nerveless votary 
exclaims — " I Mill seek it yet again I'' Yes, 



TRUE >rAXLINESS. 33 

" once more ;' there is the old plea of tempta- 
tion. Once more, just to whet the flagging 
resolution, or to prepare the reluctant will. I 
cannot recount all the forms in which this plea 
presents itself. But that this is the general result 
witli those who become confirmed in vicious hab- 
its, is too well known. Time after time has been 
witnessed the spectacle of a man alarmed or 
encouraged into a resolution of repentance. He 
shakes himself from his moral lethargy. A glow 
of honest endeavor kindles in his demeanor. He 
feels the evil in which he has so long indulged. 
He declares bravely against it. He publishes 
his purpose. His friends take courage. Hope 
returns to hearts that have long ceased to hope 
for him. The affection that has clung to him in 
all his alienation, is surprised with a new joy. 
And for a while his reformation seems sure. The 
will begins to steady itself. Appetite is firmly 
controlled ; and signs of spiritual health gradu- 
ally appear. But lo ! we look again, and all the 
fair promise is overwhelmed. The victim has 
relapsed into his bondage. The sensual nature 
has returned to its wallowing in the mire. The 
old custom was too strong for the new endeavor, 
and the man has fallen. 

Kow, I do not wish to discourage the hope of 

reformation even in the lowest of mankind. But 
2* 



34 CIIKISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

let US not think it to be an easy and certain under- 
taking. Let us consider vice as it is, a fearful and 
despotic mastery. And while to those who are 
struggling in its chains, we hold out the signals oi 
hope and the right arm of help, let us beware our- 
selves of entering even the outer circle of the 
mighty vortex. Let us realize its potency and its 
danger. Let the wrecks of victims thrown up 
from its depths appal us and drive us back. Let 
us consider how many who have nearly escaped 
its toils, have been drawn back again by its almost 
irresistible fascination ; and with this fatal sur- 
render how many thousands have disappeared in 
its dark gulf forever ! 

These, then, are some of the suggestions which 
may be urged concerning the intrinsic character 
and the tendencies of vice ; namely, its debasing 
influence, its moral retributions, and its despotic 
power. I might have dwelt more upon its out- 
ward results, its rags, disease, and suffering. But 
I have mentioned the inward and the essential 
evils, of which these manifestations are but the 
feeble signs. It may be said, too, that I have ex- 
posed the extreme results of vice; whereas the 
young man, as a general thing, is more immedi- 
ately exposed to its preliminary seductions. But 
this is the very way in which I would show the 
danger of these seductions. I would expose the 



TRUE MANLINESS, 35 

end to which they lead. If they do not inevitably 
conduct to these results, these are the hazards of 
the least tampering with vice. There is no secu- 
rity except in total abstinence and uncompromis- 
ing fesistance. There is no such thing as a mo- 
derate indulgence in evil. The danger of yielding 
in the least cannot be exaggerated. I have used 
no overstrained illustrations. On the contrary, I 
feel that I have failed to express, and that I am 
not able to express, the fearful reality. Here the 
sad, living example is more forcible than any 
argument. Far more sickening and appalling than 
any elaborate description, are those three words 
of the text — indicating a suicide so common, and 
suggesting a train of moral results so fearful and 
inexpressible. It is enough to say of the victims 
of vice, that with all their physical powers, with 
all their intellectual and moral faculties, with all 
their privileges and promises — they are " abusers 
of themselves." 



II. 

THE ADVANTAGES OF CITY LIFE. 

Doth not wisdom cry 1 and understanding put forth her voice ? 
She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of 
the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the 
coming in at the doors. 

Peoveebs vm: 1 — 3. 

Whatever may be our condition in life, it is 
better to lay hold of its advantages than to count 
its evils. We ought not to shut our eyes to the 
exposures of our lot. We should heed its warn- 
ings, and guard against its dangers. But in that 
situation, as in every other, there are peculiar op- 
portunities for good, and to improve them is the 
richest of our privileges. Indeed, every post of 
action has its two sides. If a man is so disposed, his 
place of all others will appear to him the most 
fraught with gloom and peril. But if he regards 
his circumstances with a virtuous will, he will be 
sure to discover some salient point that he could 
not find anywhere else, upon which to build a no- 



oS CIH;iSTIA>-nY TllK rEEFECTION OF 

make the good of our condition available, than to 
hesitate over its evil. Moreover, if we would in- 
duce others to act virtuously, it will prove more 
effectual to show them their capacities than to 
expose their weakness ; to attract them by a fairer 
ideal than to terrify them by pictures of misery 
and shame. 

With these thoughts I have selected the subject 
of the present discourse. In my last I dwelt upon 
the peculiar facilities for vice which are concen- 
trated in a metropolis — upon its moral dangers. 
But now I would advance beyond tliis point, and 
suggest the good as well as the evil of the young 
man's position here. I propose, therefore, to speak 
of the advantages of city life, and to urge the im- 
provement of these advantages. 

It is hardly necessary to say that I refer to the 
higher advantages of city life — to its moral facili- 
ties ; not its advantages for the mere enjoyment 
of existence, or for gratifying ambition, or for 
making money. In all the bustle and selfishness 
of the metropolis, there are rich suggestions and 
great opportunities. In the midst of its sounding 
toil, its gaudy and vicious pleasures, its controlling 
interests, " wisdom," though unheard it may be by 
the many, " crieth ; she standeth in the top of 
high places, by the way in the places of the paths. 
She crieth at the gates at the entry of the city, at 



TRUE 2SrANLINES3. 39 

the coming in at the doors." I can onlj illustrate 
these advantages in two or three particulars. 

L I would suggest the advantage which comes 
from the exGitement and the activity of a city life. 
It will be found, I think, that the incessant move- 
ment of such a life, its novelties and contacts, are 
peculiarly calculated to wake up all the faculties 
of a man, to render him vigilant, to give him 
adaptedness, and to endow him with executive 
ability. I do not intend to draw any sharp com- 
parison in this respect between the opportunities 
of the town and the country. It may be properly 
said that the citizen is as ignorant of the farm and 
the forest as the countryman is of the mighty world 
of traffic. It may be said, moreover, that one 
who stands aloof from the feverish bustle of life 
can but detect its lessons and solve its problems ; 
that through " the loop-holes of retreat" the sounds 
of " the great Babel" melt into a more articulate 
wisdom than to those who are near at hand ; and 
that in the jDauses of rural leisure we can extract 
the very essence of affairs, and gather the ripest 
conclusions. No doubt some of the shrewdest and 
most comprehensive minds, who at a distance have 
studied the world with keen observation, and who 
judge of it with singular accuracy, have been 
formed in this way. JSTo doubt some of the most 
capable men who appear in any season of emei"- 



40 CIIKISTIAXITY TlllC PEUFECnOX OF 

gency, step out from the seclusion and meditation 
of the country. 

Nor do I overlook the narrowness of soul so 
often exhibited on the other hand. Perhaps there 
is no ignorance so marvellous as that which is 
sometimes generated in a great city. I do not re- 
fer now to the mental condition of thousands who 
fester in its lanes and cellars ; but of some who 
are active in its interests and numbered among its 
respectable names. The exclusive pursuit of one 
occupation, year after year, cramps and attenuates 
the mind. The crowd and bustle, the wide variety 
and ceaseless glitter of a city, are calculated to 
induce superficiality. And, sometimes, the citizen 
is one whose thoughts never go much beyond the 
bricks of the metropolis and the topics of the 
exchange. His ideas of majesty and beauty are 
derived from painting and wax-work, from the 
street pageant, and theatrical show\ His inspira- 
tion is caught from the ledger and the newspaper, 
his reasoning is municipal, his fancy is as celestial 
as the gas-lamps, his geography is no broader than 
the wake of the packet-ship or the track of the 
rail-car, his astronomy is a vague reminiscence, or 
a glance over the chimney-tops. In short, he is a 
parcel of local prejudices and cockney conceits ; an 
artificial man — ignorant of the world, of nature, 
and of life. 



TRUE MANLINESS. 41 

But in the proposition which I am now discuss- 
ing, I did not intend to include either of these 
extremes. If there are men of profound and 
practical wisdom in the retreats of rural life, so 
are there men who have their nooks of retirement 
and watch-towers of meditation in the midst of 
the city's uproar, and their reflections are enriched 
rather than hindered by the varied experiences 
about tliem. And if in the city we may find those 
who are little r^ore than machines and bubbles, so 
in the country we may find those who are little 
more than clods. But when I say that the activity 
and excitement of a city life are calculated to 
wake up the faculties of a man, without referring 
to any profound knowledge which he may obtain, 
I mean that if he has the usual sprightliness of 
youth, in these busy events and ever-changing 
scenes, he may acquire a keen, practical wisdom, 
and an easy adaptedness, which will fit him for 
the varied turns of life, better than in the coun- 
try. For it will be admitted that the more a man 
mingles with affairs, the more he sees and experi- 
ences, other things being equal, the better he is 
prepared for the practical occasions of the world. 
Thus the education of a city-life is in some re- 
spects like the education of travel — it imparts 
readiness of action and comprehensiveness of 
view. It removes rawness and awkwardness. All 



42 CHRISTIANITY THK PERFECTIOX OF 

the powers of a man are aroused by these move- 
ments and kept awake by these incessant activities. 
He is polished b}^ manifold contacts. 

But, after all, the young man may apply the 
advantages of a city life in two ways. I would 
illustrate this by observing, that in a city he has 
special opportunities for becoming, in a good or in 
a bad sense, a Man of the Wo?-ld. For this term 
may imply a man of ripe experience, of good- 
breeding, and of practical skill, or it may imply 
the heartless sensuality of the epicure or tlie ofl'eii- 
siveness of the fop. He may be a man of the 
world as an accomplished gentleman, or as an 
accomplished villain. He may be a man of the 
world as one of mean views and sordid pursuits, 
or as one of high aims and generous soul. He 
may be such as one possessing a brazen impu- 
dence or a wise humility ; as a charlatan or a 
man of sterling worth. He may be a man of the 
world as one who is enslaved by it, or as one who 
is disciplined by it. In fine, a man of the world, 
on one hand, is a man whose standard is in the 
world ; who always sails in the current of the 
world, who goes by its weights and measures, and 
has no higher interest or hope ; who carries it clat- 
tering about him in his most secret liours, in his 
dreams, in the sanctuary, and at the death- bed ; a 
man of the world as living and dying in it. On 



TRUE MANLINESS. 43 

the other handj a Man of the World is one who 
has mastered the world, who sees both its merits 
and its worthlessness. who employs it as a means, 
but does not embrace it as an end ; who occupies 
it as an amphitheatre for noble discipline, but not 
as a perpetual abiding-place ; who recognizes an 
ideal above it ; who does not love it to excess, and 
is not afraid of it ; who dares to act athwart its 
opinions and customs, when he hears a voice more 
authoritative than its clay-built oracles ; who can 
walk through it unharmed by it ; who, for the sake 
of better companionship, can detach himself from 
it ; who can carry into retirement all the wealth 
of its experience, free from the despotism of its 
lusts ; who, in the calm silence of old age, can 
hear its sounds afar off like one to whom the mur- 
murs of a distant city flow unruffled and pleasant 
through the evening shadow ; and who can bid it 
farewell like one who is about to start for a fairer 
land. He is a Man of the World as one who has 
passed through it and triumphed over it. 

Now a city life affords facilities for this latter 
attainment as well as for the former, and one or 
the other the young man will be likely to derive 
from his residence here. Surely he will not fail 
to strive for that which Wisdom, crying at the 
very gates and entry of the city, so earnestly 
recommends. 



4-i CHRISTIANITY THE rERFECTION OF 

II. I would suggest an advantage aflforded by 
city life in th^ contact of man with man. This 
topic is really involved in the general subject 
under the last head, but its importance justifies a 
special notice. Nor will it be necessary to qualify 
any of my illustrations by opposing facts. They 
are admitted in the outset. I know that the very 
truth which I now present begets the most enor- 
mous <^/6-advantages. I know that the mingling 
of largo multitudes may excite, and does excite, 
the worst passions. I know that it makes selfish- 
ness more intense, that it induces comparative 
carelessness of human life, and that nowhere 
does humanity present such sad and horrid aspects 
as in great cities. ^Nowhere do the sympathies 
seem so limited as here, shut up and intersected 
by brick walls. On the one side, perhaps, there 
is a funeral, and on the other a feast, and he who 
lives between these extremes of life's history, may 
know nothing of either. Nowhere is man so 
truly alone. Here are crowds of isolations. In- 
dividuals jostle one another, and yet each is more 
solitary than he would be in the forest or the 
desert. They pass, at morning, each intent upon 
his own selfish end, — the groups separate at night 
and vanish into the dusky avenues, without one 
throb of recognition or word of cheer. Moreover, 
nowhere are there such abrupt contrasts — such 



TKUE MANLIXESS. 4:5 

problems for the philosopher and tlie philanthro- 
pist. Plenty and starvation, bloated indolence 
and unfed labor, the hovel of the beggar propped 
against the palace of the rich man, silks alter- 
nating with rags, beautj side by side with living 
bodies of corruption, shouts of revelry wafted into 
the chamber of mourning, the i-attling chariot of 
joy jarring the uplifted hand of suicide, the blaze 
of aristocratic pomp close by the spot where un- 
known masses of suffering and grief stir heavily, 
like the heavings of a stagnating sea. 

And yet, for all this, I maintain that the contact 
of man with man, if we will heed the opportuni- 
ties it affords, is a great and peculiar advantage in 
city life. In the first place, this incessant inter- 
course is calculated to beget tolerant and liberal 
mews. Let a man live as a recluse, or as the lord 
of some petty domain, and he will be apt to be- 
come a bigot or a dogmatist. He is not used to 
contradictions in his tastes or his opinions. His 
mind rusts in the socket of its own self-propelled 
action, for there has been no opposing mind to dis- 
turb it. He will be likely to settle into the con- 
viction that his views are the standard, and if he 
goes abroad will expect to test other notions by 
his own. 

But it is the tendency of social contact to shake 
this self-conceit. Intellects and opinions clash to- 



46 CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFECTIOX OF 

getlier. Men cannot always live in a dispute, and 
yet in the very first encounter we may find some 
one whose ideas differ radically from our own. 
Moreover, although the notions of many are so 
contrary to ours, we discover that in common life 
they are worthy people, and that their theories do 
not make such shocking havoc as we had inferred. 
Alx this begets a tolerant spirit. AVe are forced 
to cherish it if we would have any pleasant inter- 
course — we are forced to cherish it by the general 
excellence of those with whom we differ. Nor is 
this the result of a weak indifferentism. In society 
there is not merely a mutual toleration, but a mu- 
tual interchange of opinions. Mental activity is 
excited, and the views of each are honestly de- 
fended. Yet, by comparing views, "sve learn that 
we have not all truth, and that even the most des- 
pised may have some truth that we have not yet 
detected. It has been well said by a thoughtful 
writer, that " a thorough conviction of the differ- 
ences of men is the great thing to be assured of 
in social knowledge : it is to life what NeAvton's 
law is to astronomy ;" and nowhere can we learn 
this great law so well as amid the diverse tastes 
and opinions of a great city. And, while the 
young man should see to it that he is shaken out 
of no good habit, no honest conviction, he may 
here find many little conceits giving way before 



TRUE MANLHsESS. 47 

the pres'ciire of other minds, and better views of 
tr.ith and nobler forms of virtue breaking in upon 
him. 

But, again, the intercourse of man with man in 
large cities, is favorable to the cultivation and the 
practice of Philanthropy . This proposition may. 
seem strange at first sight, and yet I think we shall 
find it to be true. There may be circumstances in 
which the heart, becoming accustomed to misery, 
grows callous to it ; but I cannot believe that this 
is commonly the case with mankind, nor, there- 
fore, that the spectacles of suftering which perpet- 
ually meet us in great cities, have a hardening 
effect. The large demand upon a man's sympa- 
thies may limit the exercise of his generosity. 
Frequent imposition may make him circumsj)ect. 
He may be compelled to systematize his charities. 
But he does not deny the better feelings of his 
nature. On the contrary, here is the broadest 
opportunity for philanthropic action ; and it is of 
the opportunity I speak, rather than of the man- 
ner in whicli men may treat it. Surely, therefore, 
any hindrance to the doing of good, which may 
come from ignorance of occasions, does not exist 
here. He who will emulate the spirit of the good 
Samaritan, may find a varied field for his efi'orts. 
ISTay, if he would imitate the great Benefactor and 
Saviour, nowhere can he do it so well as in the 



43 CriKISTIANITY THE I'ERFECIION OK 

streets and dwellings of a city. Here, all about 
as, lie the blind, the poor, the leper-smitten, the 
impotent child of disease, with no one to help him 
to the healing pool, the crippled son of misfortune 
crouching at the beautiful gate of the temple, and 
desiring, if we have neither silver nor gold, a word 
of christian sympathy and benediction. Here, if 
we cherish good-will towards our fellow-men, and 
would not sheath our hearts in selfishness, but 
make the world better for our living in it, we 
may experience the bliss that rewards the giving 
of even a cup of cold water to the thirsty lip. If 
the young man would have the springs of benev- 
olent sentiment awakened within him, and learn 
to look beyond the sphere of self, here, of all 
places, is the school for such a culture. 

Moreover, if benevolence is like love, "it grows 
by what it feeds on." Its spirit once actively en- 
gaged, increases in depth and richness as it goes 
on. Here, too, then, is an advantage of city life ; 
for not only is the sentiment intensely excited, but 
it may be always employed. And I am not speak- 
ing of a mere theoretical philanthropy — of a dead 
sentiment. It is no more than just to say, that in 
the bosom of large cities we discover some of the 
noblest efforts of benevolence ; hearts whose char- 
ities are as ample as their wealth ; humble souls 
that delight to refresh the waste places around 



TKUE MANLINESS. 43 

them ; ministrations to tlie sick and the poor, that 
God beholds approvingly beneath all this atmos- 
phere of selfishness and sin. And here, too, rise 
noble monuments of public munificence. It is 
wrong to describe our cities as merely hives of 
sordid toil and sensual enjoyment. Their wealth 
and enterprise are not all devoted to such uses. 1 
do not say that enough is done, but something, 
yea, much, is done for humanity. The spires of 
our churches are not the only tokens of a higher 
sentiment that breathes among our marts and 
warehouses. Side by side with these rise institu- 
tions for the blind, the dumb, the insane, and 
among our fierce passions, and our busy cares, are 
sheltered the angels of consolation and of grati- 
tude. And here, then, there is a spirit awakened, 
a power concentrated, a great work done, which 
we may believe could not exist except in the pecu- 
liar circumstances of city life. And if we say 
that the city engenders the very misery that it 
alleviates, let us remember that the sentiment of 
benevolence is richer than the gift it bestows — is 
an intrinsic good, in the possession of which a 
man may most imitate his Maker. Any circum- 
stances, therefore, that awaken this sentiment, are 
advantageous. 

But let me say still further, that if here human 
misery is at its highest pitch, here too we may ex- 



50 CURISTIANITY THE rERFECTION OF 

pect to discover the profoundest remedies for it. 
In the history of man it has been very generally 
the case, that when evils have grown insnfferable, 
they have touched the point of cure. Dr. Hooke 
has remarked, in reference to scientific questions, 
" that whenever in his researches he found him- 
self stopped by an apparently insurmountable 
difficulty, he was sure to be on the brink of a val- 
uable discovery." AYho shall say that this will 
not be the result in regard to those great social 
questions which are, apparent!}^, every day Hear- 
ing a crisis, especially in the .midst of large cities ? 
We know that in some respects, particularly in 
regard to light, and water, and fuel, almost insup- 
portable evils have led to a high degree of improve- 
ment. It may be, then, that large cities, while 
aggravating the sufferings of great masses, are 
at the same time developing the method of melio- 
ration, if not of cure. At least, here are sug- 
gested the questions, and here room is afforded for 
the experiments which will lead to such a desirable 
consummation. 

But, again, a peculiar advantage afforded by the 
contact of man with man, in a metropolis like this, 
appears in the fact that here we behold humanity 
not onl}'^ in its phases of suffering and shame, but 
of capacity and attainment. Here we have truly 
the spectacle of a public, and here we may culti- 



TRUE MANLINESS. 51 

?ate a public spirit, and realize the worth of hu- 
man interests, and the brotherhood of the race. 

Li the town we see God's noblest work ; and 
the consideration of that capaeity which reared 
these buildings, and laid out these streets, and 
which fills them with the tide of enterprise and 
industry, is no mean study. The great volume of 
hamanity is open here with all its varied lessons, 
than which there is none of deeper interest or 
instruction. Yet here, again, the young man may 
make a good or bad aj^plication of this knowledge. 
He may use it for selfish or licentious ends, or for 
the noblest purposes of virtue and charity. If he 
will but hear that uplifted voice of wisdom, which 
is uttered through all these experiences, he will 
gain a result richer than the attainment of wealth, 
or than any worldly success. 

III. Finally ; I would illustrate the advantages 
of City Life by observing that it is a great school 
for principle. This topic deserves more labor 
than I can bestow upon it now, but I shall have 
occasion to recur to it before I close this series. 
But the proposition which I would urge at this 
time, is based upon the truism that virtue is devel- 
oped only by trial. A city life is a great school 
for principle because it afibrds a keen trial for 
principle. The man who passes through its temp- 
tations, and yet holds on, unyielding, to the right, 



52 CHRISTIANITY IHE PEEFECTK N OF 

will be proved as bj fire. He will see clearly the 
snprermacy of duty over mere expediency, and will 
cherish virtue for virtue's sake. I would not im- 
ply that there is any condition in life where such 
trial is not afforded. But, certainly, there are 
situations, in which compared with the city it is 
easy to live pure, honest, and noble. The peculiar 
exposures to vice in a place like this, I dwelt upon 
in the last discourse. There are other perils in 
the circumstances of trade which are sufficiently 
evident. It is difficult for one absorbed in its 
current, and eager for its success, to maintain the 
broad sentiment of christian rectitude, and to pre- 
serve his integrity. There is in this respect a con- 
ventional morality somewhat lower than the 
standard of the decalogue, into which one slips by 
i^ very easy sophistry, and from which he cannot 
i-eadily emerge. There is the plea of example, 
and the plea of apparent necessity. It is surely a 
trial for a man to keep the dictates of conscience 
fresh and inviolate here, and truly strong is he 
who in all the entanglements of traffic, can thus 
enthrone principle in his heart, and who dares to 
test his own conduct by the clear light of chris- 
tian truth. But although we talk of the dangers 
which assail the young man in a great city, and 
although there are dangei-s complex and powerful, 
is it best, therefore, that he should never venture 



TRUE MANLINESS. 53 

among these liabilities ? Or, rather, shall we not 
show him the noble opportunity there is for true 
manliness, and bid him enter bravely yet seriously 
upon the crowded stage, and avail himself of the 
stern discipline ? Let not him nor any other man 
rush presumptuously into temptation, neither let 
him shrink from its control, but rather meet it in 
such a way that it shall prove an advantage. He 
who avoids the battle of life remains weak and 
unready, and only he who contends for the mas- 
tery wins the crown. Nowhere is there a moral 
battle-field, so fitted for righteous persistence and 
achievement, as in the midst of the selfish and 
vicious city. 

But not only does it thus furnish an opportunity 
for moral discipline in its very circumstances, but 
by the illustrations of the value of principle which 
are here exhibited. There is, for instance, a sub- 
lime and cheering spectacle in the usual order of 
the metropolis. Crime and violence are exceptions 
to the general rule. The mechanism of society 
works with beautiful regularity. Each interest 
maintains its sphere, each right moves undisturbed 
in its orbit. Human life is safe without any 
castellated defences, and the richest property is 
protected by merely a thin plate of glass. The 
magistrate's staff is as potent as the wand of an 
enchanter, and the faintest symbol of authority re- 



54: CimiSTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

ceives an nnreluctant respect. Or if for a moment 
this order is shaken, and riotous iri-nption threatens 
its checks and bahT^nces, the instinct of the major- 
ity promptly arrests the incipient anarchy and 
restores the equilibrium. The spirit that controls 
this great machinery is the spirit of law, but the 
sources of this law are more primitive than statute- 
books or courts of justice. They issue from a sen- 
timent deep in the individual heart. They abide 
in an ideal, loftier than any mere human authority. 
The safety and the happiness of society, after all, 
flow out from the recesses of private principle. 

Or take the ordinary transactions of business. 
Although I have said that these are conducted 
with too much of a conventional and too little of 
an absolute morality, yet no one can deny the in- 
tegrity which lies at their foundation, and which 
is essential to their very life. The radical condi- 
tion of all business intercourse is reverence for 
principle — confidence in the sanction that gives 
credit to the note of hand, and that imparls 
potency to seal and signature. It is that extends a 
telegraph of mutual faith around the globe, main- 
tains a bond of communion between men at oppo- 
site ends of the earth, and whitens the sea with 
commerce. Strike away the conviction of the 
existence of principle, let it be generally believed 
that men are kept from fraud and crime only by 



TRUE MANLINESS. 55 

the sharp restraints of law, and that in the human 
heart there is no real reverence for the right, and 
you break at once all the props of society, and 
stop the wheels of traffic. When, therefore, in 
every thronged street, in every open warehouse, 
in every departing and i-eturning ship, the young 
man recognizes the power of principle, when he 
sees how the very city itself grows out of it and is 
built upon it, surely he sees an illustration of it 
which is nowhere else so impressive. 

The value of principle, however, is not only 
shown here by its implication with the general or- 
der of society, and in all the intercourse of busi- 
ness, but by the sad examples of those who violate 
it. Every deed of dishonor, every victim of vice, 
every ghastly spectacle of crime, is an eloquent 
testimony to the need and the worth of virtue. 
Yet, if here, of all places, are the nests of iniquity ; 
if here stand thickest the frowning walls of 
prisons ; if here sin leers upon us with its most 
odious shapes, and the heart grows sick at unfath- 
omable depths of depravity, here, as from letters 
of tears and blood, let the young man learn the 
value of principle. Let him come face to face 
with these dread samples of city life, to meditate 
and to pray. Let him stand upon the outer rim 
of this great hazard into which he is about to 
plunge, and from the fate of thousands ,vho have 



56 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

gone before, from the upheaved wrecks of virtue, 
hope, and happiness that lie shattered at his feet, 
let him learn that without integrity of heart, pure 
purposes, and noble aims, he goes upon a venture 
that is perilous, indeed ; but with this steadfast 
law of principle in his soul, he enters the noblest 
arena for its trials and its rewards. And surely, 
if he learns and heeds this law, there is an inesti- 
mable advantage even in the worst aspects of city 
life. 

These are all the suggestions upon the general 
topic of this discourse that time will permit me 
now" to urge. And as I close, let me reiterate the 
great truth with Avhich I commenced, and which 
is more important than all the rest, because it 
comprehends them all ; the truth that every posi- 
tion in life has its own peculiar advantages, and 
the noblest thing we can do is to lay hold of our 
advantages — is to make our circumstances the glo- 
rious agents of good — is to pluck from the hardest 
conditions the ripest fruits of virtue for ourselves, 
and to make the place about us better for our j^res- 
ence. For this generous end, then, O young men! 
I would have you strive in this crowded and busy 
thoroughfare. The country may have its advan- 
tages for virtue, for communion with nature, as well 
as its negative safeguards. But, wherever we may 
be placed, in the country or the town, it will de- 



TRUE MANLINESS. 57 

pend upon tlie sjyirit in which we w^ork, whether 
the agencies about us wnll become agents of good 
or of evil. And if we will heed the motives of 
our own welfare, of social benefit, and of religion, 
in the midst of the city so often made a mart of 
selfishness, and a sink of pollution, in the midst of 
its ceaseless toil and its dizzy hum, its dust and 
strife and fretting desire, we may build up the 
fabric of industry, knowledge and honor. With 
the contact of its multiform interests you may 
keep ever fresh the best pulses of the heart, and 
from the varying aspects of your brother-man 
learn the most generous truths. And in the heat 
of its temptations, so thick and fervid all around 
you, you may forge the armor of an invincible 
virtue. Through all this unceasing roar of busi- 
ness, will be heard the articulate appeal of wisdom 
" crying at the gates, at the entry of the city, at 
the coming in at the doors"— a wisdom heard and 
heeded, and fruitful with the blessing of God. 



3* 



III. 

THE CLAIMS OF THE TIME UPON YOUNG MEN. 

But can ye not discern tlie signs of the times ? 

Matthew xvi : 3. 

Men are not apt to recognize the opportunities 
and the sacredness of their own age. They revere 
a greatness in the past, and anticipate a glory in 
the future, of which the present seems quite 
empty. At least, they are prone to under-rate the 
possibilities immediately around them. The Phari- 
sees and Sadducees were skilful in detecting the 
forebodings of the sky, but they disregarded the 
moral phenomena of their time. Expecting the 
kingdom of God through outward symbols, they 
perceived not that it was already in their very 
midst. Demanding a sign from heaven, they were 
blind to the embodied manifestation of the Deity. 
N"ow the perception of by-gone or of coming eras, 
as better than our own, may to some extent excite 
in us penitent emulation or encourage us to more 
strenuous effort. But we should indulge no barren 
or sensual conception of the present. We should 



60 CHKISTIANITY THE PKEFKCTION OF 

not be insensible to any contemporary excellence, 
or undervalue our privileges. Especially should 
nothing blunt our sense of personal responsibility 
in regard to these agencies. Every age filled with 
its peculiar responsibilities, duties and dangei-s, 
rich in its opportunities for noble action, lays its 
claims upon us all to believe and* do accordingly. 
But I proceed to remark that young men stand 
in a special relation to their own time. For, in 
the first place, they are jpeculiarhj susceptible to 
good impressions. They have not grown hardened 
in the mould of habit, nor become entangled in 
selfish cares. In them, human nature is yet plastic. 
The seeds of good resolve, progress, virtue, fly to 
them winged with fresh hopes. Often, the only 
remedy that we can descry for present evils, is the 
substitution of another stock of men. In the 
coming of a new generation there always opens a 
better prospect for the Avorld. That prospect may 
be delusive ; yet, when we consider the general 
current of Providence, we cannot readily believe 
that it will j)rove so. Here are unexhausted minds 
to attack the old problems. Here is an unpledged 
tribunal before which neglected right may again 
plead. Here are keen and exuberant faculties for 
the attainment of truth. And the natural motion 
of youth may be expected to carry forward the 
cause of l|umanity and rigliteousncss. 



TKUE MANLmESS. 61 

But, again, young men stand in a peculiar rela- 
tion to their own time, because theirs, esi^eciallj, 
is the 2^^^'"i'0d of enthusiasm. Theirs is a natural 
chivalry, which, while it too frequently runs into 
license, may be efficient for the highest moral 
purposes. The promptings of noble resolution, 
the generous love of a good cause, are congenial 
to their disposition. If young men often spurn 
all authority, and break beyond the bounds of 
reason, old men are apt to settle into a selfish 
apathy or a cynical distrust. If youth lacks the 
wisdom of experience and the balance of maturity, 
neither is it wedded to conventionalisms, nor 
wearied with effort, nor cankered by disappoint- 
ment and skepticism. We may well believe that 
these centripetal and centrifugal tendencies are both 
wasely ordered; that by the effervescence of the 
young, and the inertia of the old, all that is best 
is preserved, and all that is needed, attained. To 
be sure, it is a consummation as much more 
blessed as it is more rare, to see an enthusiasm 
which is ripened by experience, to see one whose 
sympathies the trials of life have not drank up, 
but only softened with a holier dew. But let us 
not fail, therefore, to recognize the capacity which 
exists simply in this spontaneous chivalry of the 
young, and which gives an elasticity to their efforts 
that the sober realities of after years will too soon 



62 CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFECIION OF 

repress. Allow that in youth imagination does 
outstrip reason and glorify the horizon Avith land- 
scapes that will fade away. Allow that life seems 
richer, and the world better than they will turn out. 
Allow that the buoyant hope that bears onward the 
heart must furl its sail, and the generous courage 
Avilt, and the strong right arm prove too weak ; — it 
is better so. It is better that the commencement of 
the course should furnish such springs of encour- 
agement, or else there would be no motive to 
enterprise. The dust of noon-tide should not clog 
the feet of the morning-traveller. The trumpet 
of retreat should not snarl among the keen notes 
that summon to the battle. The heart should beat 
then only with honor. The eye should see nothing 
but images of victory. Delightful is this enthu- 
siasm of youth, laying hold of ventures which 
other generations have rejected, or dropped in 
despair, and bearing them on with its own tidal 
sweep. Providence often makes this gushing 
earnestness a fountain of glorious achievement. 

But the great claim which any age makes upon 
its young men, rests upon tTie peculiarity of their 
position. Every good thing demands their advo- 
cacy, every evil their vigilance, from the simple 
fact that they are the channels through which the 
past will flow into the future. Inheritors of all 
that the by-gone time has accomplished, the 



TKUE arANLINESS. 63 

beneficiaries of its toils and its sacrifices, bearing 
in their bosoms its ripened sheaves, they are urged 
by the deeper claims of gratitude to do the work 
of duty. Fronting the time to come, and touching 
the issues of unborn history, possessing an influ- 
ence that shall throb in the veins of uncreated 
men, they are urged to this, also, by the most 
stringent considerations of responsibility. In this 
light, it is not easy to exaggerate the importance 
of each young man who hears me. Be his condi- 
tion in the world distinguished or obscure, he is 
an electric point from which shall leap some spark 
of life, some kindling atom in the destiny of the 
future. Let the world's wealth of truth and moral 
power at this moment be great or small, it must 
all be transmitted through the generation that is 
now coming upon the stage, and their position, 
therefore, is as important as the aggregate worth 
of whatsoever industry has wrought, or intellect 
discovered, or good men done. To encourage 
great resolutions, then ; to speak of a lofty work ; 
to urge the most vital consequences, is, I conceive, 
no exaggerated conception of the young man's 
sphere, but a necessary inference from his position 
in the order of Providence, and the history of the 
world. It is only saying, you may advance truth 
and goodness to a point they have never yet 
attained. You have opportunities for serving God 



04 CIIKISTIAXITY TIJE PEKFECTION OF 

and man that all the past had not. You have hut 
to resolve, and no mortal mind can estimate your 
capacity to do. And through you, so far as 
human agency can act, must proceed incalculable 
results for good or for evil. And this not by any 
abrupt difference between you and those who have 
gone before you ; not by any supernatural facil- 
ities ; but by the natural development of events, 
and the state of things into which God has now 
brought the world. " Can ye not discern the signs 
of the times ?" 

These thoughts then suggest the topic of my 
present discourse — the claims of the time ujpon 
young men. But I am embari'assed by the great- 
ness and variety of the subject, which might of 
itself occupy a series of lectures. I must, there- 
fore, in this, as in the preceding discourses, select 
two or three propositions merely, 'o elucidate the 
general truth which I have been urging upon 
you. 

I. Let me illustrate this truth, then, by observ- 
ing, that the present time lays a peculiar claim 
upon young men for Reverence. There is no 
quality in human nature more excellent than this. 
He who reveres nothing, holds no foundation of 
principle, and no depth of affection. Of course, 
he practically recognizes nothing higher or better 
than himself. God is not a vivid reality to hrm, 



TKUE MANLINESS. 65 

and holiness lias no meaning. He discerns nothing 
awful in the universe, nor in his own soul. He 
asks no guidance, he despises all law. He is wise 
in his own conceit. He has no large sympathies. 
In short, he is afloat upon the flat surface of ego- 
tism and instability. He lacks a tenderness and 
dignity of character for which the acutest logic 
and the most flashing wit is a poor compensation. 
All other gifts, without this, leave the spirit atten- 
uated and mean, to say nothing of the wrong 
which is done to the proper objects of reverence. 

But this is a quality in which young men are 
apt to be deficient. Theirs is an age of head- 
strong confidence and of self-will. They are dis- 
posed to associate the idea of manliness with the 
notion of exemption from all foreign control. 
They chafe under advice and mock at warning. 
They prefer inclination to authority, and license to 
law. They are quite likely, therefore, to be found 
on the side of disquiet and resistance. They are 
the disciples of novelty. They are disposed to 
consider everything ancient as worn out, to treat 
old customs and old truths as they treat old 
fashions, and, complacent in their own polish and 
adaptedness, they smile at " the wisdom of a past 
age," as they would at an antiquated hat, or a 
continental coat. 

Besides, their time of life is not favorable to 



GO CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

serioLt'S views. They are content with the sensual 
aspect of things. Their buoyancy of spirit makes 
everything sparkle witji merriment. As yet, they 
have encountered no penetrating trials. The}' 
have experienced none of those inward wants and 
struggles, which impart a more solemn aspect to 
the world and to man, which wake up the ques- 
tions of duty and destiny, which flash upon the 
soul the great thought of God, and cause us to 
realize our weakness, our dependence, our need of 
spiritual help. To them, life is auroral and pic- 
turesque. They have not felt themselves tossing 
upon the great deep of human existence as upon 
a lonely ocean. The midnight sky with its awful 
light and shadows, has not yet rolled over them. 

But, while I mention this common want of 
young men in all its bearings, it is that kind of 
irreverence which induces us to depreciate the past 
and the old that I mainly refer to under this head. 
This kind of irreverence is aggravated by the cir- 
cumstances of our own land and of the present 
age. This being a new country, as a people we 
are divorced in many respects from the past. In- 
stead of its venerable monuments and symbols, 
we have all about us the fresh realities of nature, 
and the active working of modern ideas. It is 
the country of experiments — the country of the 
future. Many of the men, too, who laid the 



TEUE MANLINESS. 67 

corner-stone of this nation, were advanced men — 
the pioneers of a coming epoch ; while the walls 
of the fabric were cemented by the blood of revo- 
lution. Hence these early characteristics appear 
in corresponding tendencies. Hence our anti- 
conservative position. Tliey are glorious and 
hopeful tendencies, and it is a great thing to 
carry the banner of progress in the world, and to 
demonstrate to the perplexed and struggling na- 
tions the possibility and blessedness of freedom. 
But these privileges are attended by peculiar dan- 
gers. They naturally foster unjust conceptions of 
by-gone errors, and more conservative ideas. They 
excite a lust of change and novelty, and contempt 
for associations sacred by age and usage. 

These, however, are tendencies of the whole 
age in which we live. It is an age of iconoclasm. 
The earth is shaken with the tread of revolution. 
Principles which but a century ago were only the 
fine-spun abstractions of the philosopher, or the 
dreams of poets, have sprung up armed men. 
They are rocking France like an earthquake. 
They scale the Alps. They shake the impe- 
rial throne of Austria. They have swept in 
glittering files through the crumbling arches of 
Rome. But stronger even than these, are the 
moral and intellectual forces now abroad in the 
earth, and that are embodied in that most frequent 



CHRISTIANITY TIIP: PEEFECTION OF 

word of the daj — Reform. And this, glorious as 
it may be in its objects, and good in itself, lias its 
attendant perils. In the enthusiasm of revolu- 
tion, men are more likely to destroy than to con- 
struct ; to work with a fervid and indiscriminating 
radicalism, rather than in a creative and progressive 
spirit. They are prone to think more of their 
rights than of their duties. They exhibit a con- 
fident egotism rather than submission to any 
external law, and confound all authority with 
despotism. They would hurl the good and the 
evil of the past into a common oblivion. In 
short, no one can seriously study " 'he signs of 
the times" Avithout discovering a deficiency of 
hearty reverence, and of the humble spirit of 
duty. 

At no period, therefore, has it been more neces- 
sary to enjoin upon young men the cultivation of 
this sentiment — to urge them to cherish regard for 
genuine authority, to acknowledge a higher law 
than self-will, to confess the good that has de- 
scended to us from vanished ages, and to carry 
forward every work in an eclectic, comprehensive, 
and devout spirit. 

I hope I am not misunderstood. I would not, 
under the name of revereiice, inculcate a miserable 
superstition or a selfish conservatism. I am not 
decrying this universal movement. I have no 



TRUE MANLINESS. 69 

sympathy with those who are offended at the 
prevailing excitement and boldness ; who, as if 
afraid to strive with these strong elements, sigh 
for the departed times, and seek to seal up this 
new wine into old bottles. Who retreat into the 
dim cloisters of antiquity, where a holy liglit 
streams tlirough the stained windows, where the 
piety of the saints seems to linger yet about their 
marble effigies, and venerable opinions are repre- 
sented by Gothic arch and pillar, and who, seek- 
ing thus a refuge from tumult and schism, find 
only there the fragrance and tlie consecration of 
" the ages of- faith." This, of course, is the oppo- 
site extreme. I speak that we may extract the 
best spirit of the past, not that we should endeavor 
to exhume its dry bones. We are no further ad- 
vanced to-day than we have been carried by the 
current of a wise Providence. I believe, too, that 
the present is an age of faith, jDcrhaps never more 
fresh and conscious, and that these reforms are 
ministers of the gospel. But still, I say, let the 
young man, who is to transmit the results of our 
time to the future, sacredly regard all the good he 
receives in the heritage of the past. Let him 
rejoice, that through his hands may pass the torch 
of liberty, of intelHgence, of an ever-brightening 
civilization, but let him not discharge this mission 
flippantly. If he bears great principles, he also 



70 CIIRISTIA^;iTY TliE rEin-LCTION OF 

bears great responsibilities. In spurning despot- 
ism, let him not smite at law. In doing what he 
loould, let it be what he ought. In crying out for 
" free-inquiry," let him not confound it with moral 
laxity. In scaling the heights of science, let him 
not grow bloated with pride, but ripe with hu- 
mility. In one word, M'itli discriminating rever- 
ence — reverence for truth, goodness, God — let him 
control all his private thoughts and conduct, and 
so be prepared to heed the indications, and to help 
forward the work of the present era. 

II. The time lays a peculiar claim upon young 
men to cherish faith in lyrinciple. Under all cir- 
cumstances, my friends, we are tempted to aban- 
don abstractions for realities, to sacrifice the right 
to the expedient. Indeed, if we would always 
consistently adhere to principle, there would be 
no such thing as sin, which is but the choice of 
the evil against the remonstrance of the good. 
But do we not see that we make this choice be- 
cause of moral skei^ticism .? "VVe lack faith in the 
right. Thus, men are irreligious because they 
lack faith in God. They are sensual because they 
lack faith in immortality and in their own souls. 
They plunge into the gratifications or seek the 
interest of the passing hour, rather than the 
direction of duty, because they trust in the former 



TRUE MANLIKESS. 71 

more than in the latter. They have more belief 
in its pleasures than in the stings of retribution. 

And yet, the noblest motives of human conduct 
are dra-^-n from these very " abstractions." The 
best and the bravest man is the man who, amid 
all thronging realities of life, endeavors to conform 
to an ideal rectitude. Tliose who have accom- 
plished great things, who have stood in advance 
of the age and dared to rebuke it, and who have 
overcome the world, have lived from sanctions 
that are above the world. And as this loyalty to 
the absolute right has led to martyrdom — not 
merely martyrdom by fire and scaffold, but by 
contempt, misrepresentation, and abuse — such will 
be the result even now, for the days of genuine 
martyrdom have not yet passed. Let any one 
persist in carrying out his highest convictions of 
duty, in social, political, religious action, and he 
will experience some of the keenest pangs of mar- 
tyrdom. He will be met with the cry of " ab- 
stractions !" " abstractions !" " They can never be 
carried out," it will be said ; " they will not do 
for this practical, e very-day world of ours. We 
acknowledge that this custom is defective, that 
that policy is not exactly righteous ; but it cannot 
be helped ; things would never get on without such 
connivance." And so we are almost forced to 
believe tliat the i-ight really is inexpedient, that 



i'J CIIKISTIANITY 'i!iE rKRFlXTION (F 

the good must ever succumb to the evil, that priu- 
ciple must bend to circumstances. But those of 
us who do say so, who act as if we thought so, 
lack faith in principle ; and therefore no more 
important duty can be urged upon those who are 
entering the great theatre of life, than simple loy- 
alty to their best convictions, failh in these 
despised " abstractions," this lofty ideal rectitude. 
I believe that the men of the present age need 
nothing more than this, and for the purpose of 
illustrating this point, I refer you to some of the 
aspects of the time. 

Limiting our attention to the condition of things 
in our own country, let me ask you to consider the 
characteristics of ^^olitical action too often exhibit- 
ed here. Almost evei-y man, however zealous a 
partisan he may be, is ready to confess the more 
than doubtful morality of some electioneering 
agencies, and the too frequent unscrupulous- 
ness of party machinery. What, then, is the 
excuse for it ? Why, that it is an adaptation to 
circumstances — an accommodation of principles 
to the prevalent humor of the majority. And so, 
the dictates of political action are drawn from the 
reality without, rather than from the ideal within, 
and the noble battle of right is postponed to secure 
the advantages of party success. And were it 
not really a sad spectacle, it would surely be 



TEUE MAXLIXKSS. 73 

ludicrous to behold the elasticity of principles 
when stretched upon the frame of compromise — 
to see the phantasm ago rial transformation wrought 
by the magic light of " availibility" — while 
tongues that are blistered with indignation at cer- 
tain measures to-day, will extenuate them to-mor- 
row with drops of pious honey. To see how cheap 
a fly-blown consistency is sold upon the shambles. 
To see those who in every other relation are men 
of unbending integrity, in this become men of 
waxen frailty ; now prim conservatives, now rant- 
ing reformers ; now combining the traits of the 
gentleman and the scavenger, truckling with the 
basest men, pandering to the coarsest humors and 
inflaming the worst passions of the multitude. 
And all this is done in the august name of '-'- ])atri- 
otismP Patriotism ! used to define so many 
diversities, to justify so many wrongs, to compass 
so many ends, that its life is killed out ; it becomes 
a dead word in the vocabulary ; a blank counter 
to be moved to any part of the game ; and that 
flag which, streaming from the mast-head of our 
shij) of state, striped with martyr blood and glis- 
tening with the stars of lofty promise, should 
always indicate our world-wide mission and the 
glorious destinies that we carry forward, is bandied 
about in every selfish skirmish, and held up as the 
symbol of every political privateer. 



74 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

Of course, in these remarks, I speak generally. 
I do not say this is all that our political action 
exhibits ; that there are no exceptions ; no noble 
and gratifying manifestations ; but that with all 
the rest this mingles too much, too shamelessly. 
But it is said, a strict carrying out of abstract 
principles is impossible. There must be some 
giving way, there must be compromise, there 
must be political corruption. And again, I ask, 
why ? And I answer, because there is not suffi- 
cient faith in principle. There is no reason why 
the abstract right is not made practical, except the 
fear that it cannot be. The circumstances of our 
time, then, urge a strong claim upon young men 
to believe in the practicability of the right, and 
to act up to their faith. This faith sheltered in 
their hearts and breaking out in their enthusiastic 
action, would drive these feculent evils from our 
midst with the sweep of a cleansing rain ; would 
elevate into due importance those great facts 
which hang in the orbit of our destiny ; would 
give a glorious aspect to our political struggles ; 
make our franchise a solemn right, and Christianity 
and statesmanship one. 

Again, consider the enormous materialism of 
our age. The most prominent achievements are 
physical and mechanical. The results of science 
are unfolding in grand triumphs over matter and 



TRUE MANLINESS. ' 75 

in the application of its strongest and most subtile 
agents to the convenience of man. Swift steam- 
ships dart to and fro like mighty shuttles weaving 
nations together. Human thought seizes the elec- 
tric wire, and spells its meaning with lightning. 
And every hour rises the din of wheels and ham- 
mers, the tumult of the great army of labor 
attacking all the fortresses of nature and battering 
at her adamantine gates. Now it is easy to per- 
ceive that the tendency of this is to absorb man 
in an outward and material life, to draw his 
thoughts away from absolute truths to partial facts, 
and to make principle in its highest sense less and 
less an every-day reality. 

Akin to this, is the absorbing thirst for money, 
and the marvellous incitements to that thirst 
afforded by recent events. Truth and virtue, with 
their celestial light, are likely to grow dim to us 
in the glare of this magic splendor. Nothing is 
more familiar than the fact that such an enormous 
increase of wealth is perilous to public and to 
private virtue. Nothing has been more destructive 
to the vigor, the enterprise, the life of nations. 
All the force of principle, then, is needed, to coun- 
teract these evil tendencies. 

Thus do " the signs of the tim.es" indicate the 
necessity of heeding and acting upon those moral 
abstractions wliich even in the most ordinary cir- 



<U CmUSTIANITY THE PEKFECTION OF 

cuinstaiices are too little regarded. And no claim 
is more emphatically addressed to young men, 
than that which bids them seek the sources of 
truth and virtue, and fill themselves with their 
sacred inspiration. 

III. Finally, the time lays a peculiar claim upon 
young men for Disinterestedness. I had intended 
to enlarge upon this topic, as, perhaps, the most 
important, because the most comprehensive, of all. 
But time will not permit. Suffer me, however, 
before I close, to offer a few suggestions under 
this head. I observe, then, that the radical evil 
of the human heart is selfishness. It is the spring 
of all individual sin and of all social iniquity. As 
I have shown, man fails in reverence because he 
virtually acknowledges nothing greater than him- 
self, and cherishes an egotistic confidence. He 
has but little faith in principle, because he sees 
how averse men are to waive a real interest for 
an ideal right, and he does not heed it himself 
because he loves gratification better than obedience 
or self-sacrifice. Selfishness hinders all reform, 
and opposes its huge inertia to the march of pro- 
gress long after its sophistj-ies have been shattered 
to the dust. Intemperance, Slavery, War, what 
are they but the flowering plants of this interior 
sin ? In short, no generous sentiment, no deep 
spring of moral life can be touched until we force 



TRUE MANLINESS. i 7 

into the human soul the conviction that no man 
lives to himself alone ; that this world is not 
a place where we are to eat and sleep, to gratify 
our wishes, and to scramble for our own good, and 
die without one unselfish thought of others. Christi- 
anity is not known in its sublime depth, until we 
perceive that its central truth is disinterestedness. 
What is the cross sprinkled with the Kedeemer's 
blood, but the purest illustration the world has 
ever seen of self-sacrifice ? What was that Divine 
Life but a life of self-sacrifice ? Conceive the 
Redeemer as living only for himself, using his 
miraculous powers to convert the stones into 
bread, or gold — exerting his extraordinary influ- 
ence over the multitude to lead them to conquest, 
employing his profound knowledge of the human 
heart to play upon its springs for sordid uses, — 
shut up in his own plans, and making the world 
the theatre of his gratification. The idea is utterly 
abhorrent as it is placed in connection with that 
benignity and universal love, as we call up that 
radiant face of mercy bending over the sick, that 
arm of ever-ready help lifting up the lame and 
weary, those fast tears falling over the city that 
rejected him, and prayer in behalf of those who 
pierced him. And yet, my friends, too often is it 
the case that wealth, knowledge, and power, have 
been the objects of men ; and the world has hon- 



TS CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFECTION OK 

ored them for the attainment. I ask, Has it been 
the ideal of Jesus, or the ideal which I have sug- 
gested in contrast, that has been the most eagerly 
sought and admired ? Oh, not yet, perhaps, for 
nineteen centuries will men love and comprehend 
and imitate the former, the ideal of disinterested- 
ness. This, this, is the great want of the present 
age, for if this were cherished and practiced, the 
social evils as well as the individual sins around 
us, would disappear. Encouraged as I am by the 
peculiar characteristics of young men, I urge upon 
them this virtue. Let this great truth be im- 
pressed upon you, that no one is placed here 
merely to live for himself, that we have vital 
relations with other men, that we are bound to 
seek their good, their elevation, their salvation, as 
well as our own. Look out beyond yourselves, 
beyond the circle of your own interests. Learn 
to sympathize with humanity in all its forms. 
Love God, and from this sublime affection you 
shall catch a spirit that will make your lives, hum- 
ble and obscure as they may be, rich with blessed 
deeds, and fragrant with good influences. By all 
the impulses of this spirit of disinterestedness, by 
the examples of those who have endeavored to 
practice it, by the study of that One who presents 
us with its fullest manifestation, now, in your 
fresh manhood, learn that there is something 



TRUE MANLINESS, 73 

better than riches, or fame, or even knowledge, — 
namely, that spirit which seeks to serve others, 
and to pour some benefit into the j)resent and 
future ages. 

I would say this also because of the " Signs of 
the Times." It is a period when universal ideas 
are beginning to prevail in all departments of 
human thought. Science is expanding its limits 
far beyond our powers of calculation, and bids us 
look up from this atom of earth to the immensities 
in which we are embosomed. Every day we rise 
from particular facts to broader and higher laws, 
and we see the whole form of things knit together 
by glittering bands of harmony. I have spoken 
of the dominion which man has gained over the 
material world by mechanical agencies, so that 
the whole earth has become a neighborhood, and 
the electric pulses of human sympathy are beat- 
ing around the globe. All this is calculated to 
lift us up from ourselves, to expand our aims, and 
to show our connection with other men. And the 
doctrine which Paul taught on Mars' hill — the 
doctrine of human brotherhood — is obtaining 
utterance and practical application. All these 
things are calculated to inspire the hearts of those 
who are to inherit and carry forward the results 
of this age, with a noble sentiment of universality 
and self-sacrifice. 



80 CUPJSTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

But it is essential that young men should cherisli 
this sentiment, on account of their very j)osition. 
They are the recipients of all the past. They 
inherit its best results. They enter largely into 
the labors of other men. Receiving, then, in 
their own experience, such a rich witness of the 
truth that no one liveth to himself, let them make 
a generous application of it for the sake of the 
world in which that heritage has come to them, 
and for the sake of that future to M-hich they 
must inevitably transmit good or evil. 

And let no one deny his influence. The arena 
of his action may be obscure, but its results are 
incalculable. He may secure no posthumous fame, 
but he contributes an imperishable element to the 
common stream. Young men, touching the issues 
of the future, and upon whom the burden of the 
present is about to rest — young men placed in this 
favored land and age, cultivate a large disinter- 
estedness, a spirit of sympathy with man, quick- 
ened by love to God ! Although this may have 
its differences in degree, in kind it induces the 
best works that even the greatest can perform, 
and we may thus be co-workers with the noblest 
of earth, and with Christ himself. 

I have thus oflered a few suggestions as to the 
claims of the time upon young men. It may be 
thought that there arc others more important even 



TRUE manli>;ess. 81 

than these. There is, for instance, a claim for 
intelligence, but this is so self-evident that it needs 
no illustration. And there is a claim for religion, 
without which no other form of excellence can be 
sustained, or will be but a form. This is a topic 
so essential that it requires to be discussed by 
itself. It will, therefore, constitute the subject of 
the followino; discourse. 



IV. 

CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF TRUE 
MANLINESS. 

Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the 

knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure 

of the stature of the fulness of Christ, 

Ephesians IV : 13. 

This language is used by the apostle metaphori- 
cally, as an illustration of the growth of the 
Christian Church — its progress from an element- 
ary, or infantile state, to spiritual maturity. But 
the words are equally appropriate when applied 
to the operation of Christianity upon individual 
character ; and in this sense I propose to employ 
them at the present time, I intend to speak of 
True Manliness^ and to show the necessity of 
Religion to the perfection of that state. 

I. First of all, then, I would say to the young 
man, that it is necessary he should conceive the 
importcmce of true manliness ; should entertain 
the conviction that such a consummation is requi^ 
site, and worthy his best efforts. For, whatever 



84 CnRISTIAXITY THE rERFECTIOX OF 

view of human nature we may adopt, there is 
something glorious in being a man, and in endeav- 
oring to conform to the ideal of a man. Beside 
all that we can accomplish or acquire in this 
world, our very being is an inheritance which 
should inspire the noblest aims and receive the 
most assiduous care. If man has been placed 
here as the most evident manifestation of God ; if 
the Creator has moulded for him the most exquis- 
ite of material organizations ; if he has been en- 
dowed with the faculty of intelligence and the 
j)i'erogative of moral sense ; if, in short, he has 
been made " but a little lower than the angels, and 
crowned with glory and honor," then ought he to 
conduct himself accordingly. While he laments 
the poverty of his achievements, he should not 
disparage his gifts, and however poignant his self- 
rebuke, he should shrink from nothing more than 
self-debasement. He should not confound gentle- 
ness with timidity, nor self-distrust with inaction, 
nor humility with meanness. But with a sacred 
enthusiasm he should resolve to be true to himself, 
to the integrity of his own soul. He should deter- 
mine to push each of his fiiculties to its full devel- 
opment and yet to bind them all in a mutual 
order, and, whatever the phase of outward future, 
to. build up the symmetry, the permanence, the 
intrinsic power of a genuine manhood. 



TliUK MANLINESS. 85 

In thus recommending tlie idea of true man- 
hood, I trust it is not necessary for me to describe 
minutely its constituent elements. S2:)eaking gen- 
erally, I would say, that he is a true man who 
realizes the dignity of his nature ; who is loyal to 
his best convictions ; who controls his passions and 
appetites ; who is guided by his reason ; and who 
blends a noble mastery of himself with a filial 
dependence upon God, and who is greater than 
anything that he has or does. All this implies a 
strict self-discipline, knowledge, and piety ; a bal- 
ance of opposite traits and a combination of dif- 
ferent virtues, which I have not time to hint at. 

But it needs no elaborate description. True 
manliness, however rare in practice, is well under- 
stood and universally admired. The world renders 
spontaneous homage to incorruptible integrity, to 
generous enthusiasm, to a conscientious and stead- 
fast will, to a good heart. It honors the true man 
whether he stand in high places or in low ; whether 
he rebukes the encroachments of despotism or 
breasts the flood-tide of popular passion ; whether 
he proclaims his loyalty to truth with the earnest 
tongue arid the free act, or signify it in chains ; 
whether he be the peasant-soldier, exchanging the 
reaping-hook for the musket, and hurling defiance 
to tyrants in the forlorn-hope ; whether he be the 
merchant referred to as a symbol of rectitude 



So CHRISTIANITY TUK PKRI-KCTION OF 

amid all the temptations of trafiic ; whether he he 
one of "nature's noblemen," poor yet honest, pos- 
sesshig nothing but the free soul and the diligent 
hands that God has given him, yet fulfilling his 
humble station with a majesty that shames the 
glittering rottenness of conventionalism. Surely 
every one feels that there is such a thing as being 
simply a man, borrowing no greatness from cir- 
cumstances, but lending greatness to them ; self- 
sufficient, like the shaft which is equally impres- 
sive when shooting up among the pinnacles of the 
city, or standing alone in the sands of the desert, 
neglected, and bare, and shattered by the thunder. 
This quality of true manliness, then ; this inhe- 
rent worth of character, I repeat, is a conception 
that should be especially clear in the mind of him 
who is entering upon the theatre of life. Let the 
young man realize, first of all, that to be a man in 
the best sense of the term, is a loftier object of 
ambition than anything that he may acquire as a 
man. Let him consider that whatever he may 
lack, three things he has — a mind that he may 
enrich with unlimited culture, a heart that he may 
keep fresh with generous affections and make 
strong with lofty courage, a will that may over- 
come almost any obstacle and maintain every 
right ; in fine, a nature that may be filled with 
cxhaustless power and with ever-i icreasing life. 



TRUK MANLINESS. b( 

And as standing in the amphitheatre of fancv, 
of hope, he looks around upon the world as a 
dominion which he may conquer — as he sees 
spread out before him its gardens of delight, its 
busy marts of enterprise, and its pinnacles of 
honor, and in his youthful confidence feels as if 
the choice depended only upon his will, one thing 
let him resolve — that he will be a man, and let 
him do nothing that is not accordant with this 
end. 

II. But I observe, in the next place, that per- 
haps the young man does not so often fail to have 
some conception of this quality of manliness as 
he does in having a correct conception. Indeed, 
there are few things more potent than the desire 
to be a man. The very child, in his own fancy, 
has already outrun all leading-strings, and feels 
older and taller than any of his mates. He apes 
the habits and longs for the costume of one-and- 
twenty. And the most vivid of those day-dreams 
that are woven with the tissues of reality and 
romance, is a vision of manliness, but it is 
manliness after the fashion of the ballad and the 
story — it is manliness in a fairy-world, or amid 
scenes of oriental wonder. According to this con- 
ception, to be a man is to be like Paladin or Bay- 
ard, inspired by chivalry or saluted by a continu- 
ous procession of adventure ; or like Philip Sydney, 



f HKISTIAXITY THE PERFECTION OF 

loughts high erected in a heart 
tesy," leading the hosts to glorious battle, and 
crowning death with a generosity more illustrious 
than bravery ; or like Drake, or Ealeigh, sailing 
through unknown seas, finding strange lands, and 
coining home in ships fragrant with torrid spices 
and burning with bars of gold. And although 
this is not the manliness of our real world and of 
this nineteenth century, there is in it an up-gush- 
ing vigor and generosity which would give hope 
that experience and culture might at length turn 
them to better conceptions. 

But while they are the conceits of childhood 
and youth, worse errors in regard to true manliness 
ensnare those who stand more immediately in 
contact with the actual world. In the mind of 
one that ideal is fulfilled in a compound of boister- 
ous self-will and impudence. To be a man is to 
show his independence by doing as he pleases, to 
spurn all advice from others, to laugh at all re- 
ligious considerations, and to run the round of dis- 
sij^ation. To be a man is to drink and swear, to be 
ready wuth obscene jesting, and to gratify licen- 
tious appetite. It is to have nerves so hard as 
not to be afraid of sin, and a heart so weak as to 
be ashamed of repentance. It is to swagger in 
bar-rooms by day, and to reel through the streets 
at midnight. It is to wear a flash dress and talk 



TEUE MAIS'LIKESS. 89 

in flasli language. In sliort, it seems as if this 
idea of manliness were an experiment to see with 
what a bold air and fantastical hnmor one can 
concentrate all the energies in him to the purpose 
of transforming himself into an animal, or a 
liquor-cask. For surely I do not exaggerate this 
idea of manliness if I depict its natural concomi- 
tants, and do not stop to specify occasional modi- 
fications. I say, as to many young men, that 
their notion of manliness is merely the idea of 
animal courage and sensual gratification — ^is sim- 
ply the idea of Avhat is called " a fast man," 
" good-hearted" as some term it, but casting off 
all moral restraint, and living in the indulgence 
of every appetite. 

Again : there are young men who entertain 
still another idea of manliness — in whose concep- 
tion it consists in the acquisition of wealth, or 
power, or popular reputation. He is a man, they 
think, who makes himself felt by the weight of 
his purse, the force of his abilities, or the extent 
of his patronage. So, they strain every nerve for 
money, or political success, or literary renown. 
Now, no doubt, this struggle develops some of the 
noblest traits of manhood, but there are others 
which it hinders and contracts. In the intense 
pursuit everything is absorbed which interferes 
with the master-object. The best sympathies are 



90 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

checked or become hackneyed. The purest prin- 
ciples of action are paltered with and betrayed. 
In his graspings after wealth, everything con- 
forms to the base conception. And even in accu- 
mulating knowledge, it may be, he neglects the 
finer intuitions of truth — the love and faith with- 
out which wisdom is barren. 

But sometimes the young aspirant does not 
achieve even the manliness which is developed in 
the struggle for wealth, or fame, or in the intense 
pursuit of any master-object. For sometimes liis 
ideal is the Man of Fashion, riding on the top- 
wave of exclusiveness, basking in luxury, encom- 
passed witli the most delicate amenities of civil- 
ization, caressed and adored, faultless in dress, 
demeanor and equipage, and too often one who 
cuts up life into petty niceties, who is ashamed of 
outright hearty nature, letting in the sunlight 
through painted glass and scenting the air of 
heaven with rose-water, suspecting vulgarity afar 
oif, repudiating his honest parentage, and crying 
"Corban" to his relatives — a grafted aristocrat, 
almost as good as any who have sprung from the 
root, and as proud of the patent ichor in his veins 
as though it were " the blood of all the Howards." 
In this case, the consummation is generally antici- 
pated. The desire outleaps the means. The ideal 
of manliness spins by us with the splendid equi- 



TRUE MANLINESS, 91 

page and the fleet steeds, glows at the banquet, is 
exhibited in the gorgeons establishment and the 
round of expensive habits, and over-soon meets its 
climax in a crash of pecuniary destruction, shat- 
tered credit, and incurable mortification. 

We see, then, by these illustrations, that the 
young man is not apt to lack an idea of manli- 
ness, but the true idea. Of course, he has some 
notion of this quality. He feels that he has 
arrived at man's estate, and should adopt some 
corresponding course of conduct. But, if he would 
set before him the highest ideal, where shall he 
look, not only for the end to be attained, but for 
the principles of action by which it may be 
realized ? I answer, to Religion — to Christianity 
— and this brings me to the essential point in this 
discourse. 

III. I maintain, then, that Christianity is essen- 
tial to the jperfection of true 'manliness. In the 
first place, I would show that it is so, by alluding 
to its representation of those virtues which in our 
estimate of manliness are apt to be disregarded. 
Christianity lays peculiar stress upon such qualities 
as patience, meekness, disinterestedness, — graces 
which, perhaps, we would call passive. But, in 
the common estimate of manliness, we are prone 
to consider, almost exclusively, the daring and 
active qualities of human nature. We call vigor, 



1*2 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

and shrewdness, and boldness, manhood, and over- 
look these others as weak or feminine. When we 
speak of a man, we call up before the mind's eye 
an image of hardihood and energy. But these 
qualities may co-exist with imperiousness, im- 
posture, and cruelty, with anger, revenge, and the 
most insatiable selfishness. There can be no true 
manliness without gentleness, mercy, and love. 
There is only superficial strength in him who can 
do but not endure. There is no greatness of 
nature without a universal sympathy. Show me 
a true man, and you show me one whose noblest 
traits are of this milder kind — whose strongest 
qualities, in fact, grow out of these so-called 
" passive " virtues. His large knowledge is the 
reward of a profound humility, his conscious free- 
dom the consequence of a child-like obedience. 
He can overcome the sternest obstacles, because 
he has learned how to suffer, and in the out-flow- 
ing of an unselfish love he exercises the agency 
of unlimited dominion. His courage is the fruit 
of faith, and his meekness and long-suffering im- 
press us with a sense of exhaustless power. In 
that simplicity, patience, and piety, there is the 
calmness of an unfathomable depth, the ingather- 
ing and consummation of the mightiest forces. 
Yes, in a ripe and symmetrical manliness, these 
more salient qualities are tempered and hai'- 



TRUE MANLINESS. 93 

monized with those more tender virtues which 
we are apt to consider as especially " Christian." 
Courage is always greatest when blended with 
meekness ; intellectual ability is most admirable 
when it sparkles and burns in the setting of ,a 
modest self-distrust ; and never does the human 
soul appear so strong as when it foi-egoes revenge, 
and dares to forgive an injury. 

In urging these virtues so emphaticall}^, then, 
Christianity urges the most essential qualities of 
true manliness, and illustrates their importance 
and glory. He who would live worthy the highest 
purposes of his being, must study its examples 
and drink deep of its gentle spirit. 

But, in showing the necessity of Christianity to 
the perfection of true manliness, I propose to ad- 
vance beyond this point. I observe, therefore, 
that not only does it furnish the illustration and 
the sentiment of the more gentle virtues, but it is 
in reality a vital element in all that is boldest and 
strongest in human character. It is an error to 
suppose that religion is unfavorable to vigor and 
fullness of nature. We are apt to conceive it as 
something which detracts from manly strength, 
and which renders us less fit for the labors of the 
world. To some extent, this may spring from the 
fact that we have regarded with peculiar attention 
those more gentle qualities of Christianity to which 



9i CIIEISTIAXITY 'JIIK I'EKFECTION OF 

I have just alluded. We have considered its 
kindly precepts and its Monmnlj tenderness of 
sentiment. "VYe have conceived it as peculiarly- 
calculated to produce amiable dispositions and 
transcendent views, to make men loving, pure, and 
childlike. But we do not sufficiently consider it 
as calculated to make us manlike. It would seem 
that there is in many hearts a distrust of Chris- 
tianity as a system for every-day affairs, as an 
educating jorinciple for common life. We con- 
ceive it as a religion for the closet and the cloister 
— for woman in her trials, for children in their 
tender years, for old men broken down and weary 
and about to die, for the day of sickness and 
calamity, for clergymen, for timid and melan- 
choly persons — but capable of little application 
in the din of the street, the hum of the market, 
the agitations of the caucus, the debates of the 
senate, the iron mechanism of the great practical 
world. This is a vital mistake. For of all strength 
of character, of all spiritual force, Christianity is 
the main spring, A glance at facts is enough to 
show this. For wdiere are human energies the 
most active and the best developed ? Where has 
science achieved its grandest victories ? Where 
have invention and art and civilization unfolded 
their richest results ? In Christian lands, and 
under Christian influences. Tliere is nothing so 



TRUE MAXLINPJSS. 95 

calculated — nothing but this is calculated —to give 
power and adaptation to human character, to de- 
velop real manliness. This fact I propose to urge 
under the last head of this discourse ; though I 
select only two or three points for the purpose of 
illustration, 

lY, I refer you, then, to the fact that Christi- 
anity furnishes an essential element of true man- 
liness in its great work of self -discipline. It 
matters comparatively little what may be the 
original force of any character, or the splendor of 
a man's natural gifts, for these do not constitute 
manly perfection where there is no moral order 
or control. He who is ruled by his appetites is 
not a man, but a slave. He who cannot restrain 
his passion is weak though he wield the sceptre 
of Alexander. He who has no inward retreat 
from outward ills, is indeed naked and defenceless. 
He who holds no fortress of principle in his soul, 
no supreme law of right, no fixed sentiment of 
holy obedience, is as the man who built his house 
upon the sand. In short, whatever may be the 
qualities of any one, or his achievements, there is 
no true manliness, if in his nature the best is not 
the highest, the spiritual superior to the sensual, 
the good victorious over the evil. Can we con- 
ceive anything more pitiable, for instance, than a 
man overcome by the gusts of his own anger ; his 



9(3 CHKISTIANITY THE rKKFIXTION OF 

M-rath bubbling up until it drowns reason, splits 
his speech into an impotent shi-iek, and scalds 
only himself ? And yet, perhaps, he is a man of 
good judgment and usual dignity of character. 
But all his manliness is dwarfed into a mere toy, 
a humming-top, because he lacks self-control. 
Here is another who is the embodiment of good- 
nature, frank, generous, and daring. Everybody 
notices the hearty manhood of his nature, and 
loves him. Yet this very good-nature is his de- 
struction. He cannot say " no" to any proposition, 
however absurd or sinful. He is too good-natured 
to rebuke the wrong, or refuse joining in it. His 
easiness sags down into a slip-shod virtue. His 
manhood is made of wax — it has no stamina. He 
is swept away by his own pliable disposition — 
ruined for want of an inner rule, a fortress in the 
heart. Here is another whose faculties are of 
noble proportion, rich in wealth of intellect, of 
lofty cou'rage, and not without a deep spring of 
moral feeling. But he cannot resist the prompt- 
ings of appetite. He is like a little child before 
temptation. And one by one the locks of his 
strength are shorn away on the Delilah-lap of 
indulgence. "Who has not witnessed again and 
again the mournful spectacle of one who might 
have stood up, and all the world have owned " here 
is a man," casting down his gifts into the dust and 



TRUE MANLINESS. 97 

the mire ? He lacks the royalty of a man, the 
sceptre of self-control. 

Yes, everyday history is crowded with incidents 
of youth starting out upon the course of life, fur- 
nished with the richest promise of success, before 
whom opportunity opens like magic, and whom 
fortune woos with her choicest gifts. And yet, 
after a few years, you ask for such a one and they 
tell you that he lies a wreck by the wayside of life. 
Or they tell you how they bore him, young as he 
was, with the loathsome seal upon his lips, and the 
untimely shadow upon his brow, to a dishonorable 
grave. "Without the principle of true manliness, 
his gifts were but swifter facilities of destruction. 

I say, then, there is no such thing as real 
strength of character excej)t as the product of 
self-discipline. It is the work of Christianity to 
make duty supreme over inclination, and each 
element of our nature to act in its proper orbit. 
Under its influence the soul becomes self-sufficient, 
superior to circumstances, and draws an irresistible 
energy, a clear, celestial light, from its own inner 
fountains. He alone who has been trained by this 
religious discipline is fitted for the issues of life, 
and possesses that exhaustless, evident power, 
which is always characteristic of true manliness. 
There is no standard for this quality short of " the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." 



93 CHRISTIANITY THE I'ERFECTION OF 

But again, Christianity is essential to true man- 
liness because it inspires moral courage. Perhaps 
there is no trait in which men are more deficient 
than in this. There are those who will face the 
jaws of destruction, sooner than meet the sneer of 
ridicule, or the frown of popular disapprobation. 
There are many who would rejoice to die on the 
deck of carnage, or on the bloody field, who dare 
not carry out their convictions of rectitude in spite 
of cliques, customs, and the world. Indeed, there 
are those who have not the courage to be true even 
with themselves, who dare not probe their own 
natures to break up the fond repose of habit, and 
to tear away the evils of motive. Thorough 
truthfulness — truthfulness to others and to our- 
selves — is a rare virtue. And he who indeed acts 
upon it is the noblest of all heroes. Of course, 
when I speak of moral courage — when I speak of 
a man who dares to stand up for his ideal of the 
right — I keep in mind the humility and gentleness 
with which these should be joined. Some men 
may have a reputation for moral courage that 
belongs only to a love of eccentricity — their bold- 
ness is not so much in a righteous constraint as in 
the love of provocation and a saucy tongue. But 
a genuine loyalty to truth that dares to speak it 
and live it, is one of the grandest features of man- 
hood. And this virtue does not always require a 



TRUE MANLINESS. 99 

prominent theatre of action. Nowhere, indeed, 
is it needed more than in the common arena of 
the world, in the intercourse of traffic and of friend- 
ship, in the heat of political action, and in matters 
of religion. Time will not allow me to dwell upon 
illustrations, but to the young man I would say, 
seek and cherish this. In the first place love the 
right, and then dare to maintain it. Whatever 
qualifications of manliness you may possess, with- 
out this you cannot abide the trials of life. With- 
out this you will fail of some lofty attainment, 
you will betray some meanness, you will falter at 
some important crisis. 

And if you seek for the sentiment of moral 
courage — for the spring of its inspiration — you 
can find it only in the depths of religious convic- 
tion. If you would know the true heroes of the 
world, those who have stood up before it in the 
full stature of manhood, those who have dared to 
speak, live, and sacrifice all things for the truth, 
and who have given 

" Glorious chase to persecution," 

you will find them in the archives of Christianity, 
in those sainted ones who have owned its authority 
and felt its influence, and who have been reform- 
ers, missionaries, martyrs, in its behalf. With 
their achievements how poorly contrasts the glory 
of martial heroes who have gathered laurels under 



lOU cniilSTIA^-lTY THE I'liRFKCTK^ OF 

the sulphurous canopy of battle, and bound drip- 
ping with blood about their brows. These heroes 
were pricked by a loftier courage, and encountered 
sterner dangers. They saw before them an incred- 
ulous and irritated world, and that was their field 
of conflict. In the call of hungry multitudes, in 
the wind booming through the shrouds of the 
storm-tossed ship, in the murmurs of the Athenian 
audience, in the shouts of the Ephesian circus, 
they heard the awful trump of duty, and that was 
the incitement by which they marched. They 
believed in the Omnipresence of God, and that 
was their tent and their shield. High above the 
front of peril, high above the tumultuous waves 
of trouble, they beheld the sign the eastern 
monarch saw — and by that they conquered. 

If we descend to more modern arenas and to 
more common life, we shall find the truest heroes 
of every-day acting under the same influence. 
And we can share their manhood on'y by com- 
munion with his spirit, who, in doing his great 
work, confronted death and bore his own cross, 
and so "in the faith and the knowledge of the 
Son of God," shall we come " unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ." 

Finally, though this point has been anticipated, 
I remark that Christianity furnishes the great 



TEUE MANLINESS. lOi 

essential of true manliness, in religious faith. 
This quality is essential to the other two which 
have been mentioned. Without it there can be 
no self-discipline, for in order to this there must 
be an apprehension of something higher than the 
appetites, and more authoritative than the senses, 
and there must be that spiritual perception which 
detects "great principles" in " small duties." Moral 
courage, too, springs from faith in truth — from the 
steadfast conviction that there is something per- 
manent and absolute in the universe. Skepticism 
furnishes no element of doing or of daring, it 
never overthrew a wrong institution or founded 
a state. Faith, too, — the confident looking for 
more truth — delivers us from the evil of a dwarfed 
and narrow mind, and we may confidently afiirm 
that it is as necessary to a truly great intellect as 
to a good life. Thus is this element essential to 
true manliness, inasmuch as it lifts us above an 
epicurean unconsciousness, a narrow dogmatism, 
or an atheistic denial. And, not only as the life 
of these other qualities, but in itself is it essential 
to a real manhood. It is that power which in- 
spires us with a transcendent trust, and leads us to 
a divine communion. It makes us superior to 
circumstances, and enriches us with treasures 
which are beyond the influence of time or change. 
It pours light upon the mingled allotments of life, 



102 CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFECTION OF 

and transfigures death. Considering its power 
against the severest ills of the present state, so 
sublimely illustrated in the eleventh chapter of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews ; considering the vic- 
tory which it achieves over temptation, consider- 
ing its work in the temper of the holiest lives, 
considering the visions which it opens to the soul, 
the ideals which it sets up therein, and the ener- 
gies and graces with which it imbues our whole 
nature, considering, moreover, Avhat humanity 
would be without it, we may say that the prime 
requisite of all manliness is faith — religious faith 
— " the faith and the knowledge of the Son of 
God." 

And, while thus I have endeavored to show the 
essential elements which Christianity contributes 
for the perfection of a true manly character, I 
would not leave this statement of the importance 
of religion, as though it w^ere simply a matter of 
fancy — as though its claims consisted merely in 
the accomplishment which it ijnparts. But now, 
in closing this brief series, I would lay before 
your minds the whole interest of religion. I 
would urge upon you the solemn appeal which it 
makes from the aspects of life, from the Word of 
God, from the realities of the spiritual world, 
from the wants of your own souls. 

With peculiar interest, my friends, must I regard 



TRUE MANLINESS. 103 

you. You stand at that critical period of life 
wlien you are taking tlie reins into your own 
hands, when the props upon which you have 
leaned are dropping away from you, and tlie 
counsel of others is apt to be too lightly spurned. 
A little while ago, and you slumbered in the safety 
of maternal arms — a little while ago, and you were 
environed with the influences of the home and the 
school. ISTow you are stepping forth in the great 
world to show what ydu are in yourselves. And I 
know of nothing by which that trial can be suc- 
cessfully made, except the inner life and guidance, 
and the spiritual help from on high, which we call 
religion. You need its life, its experimental power 
in the heart, in all the conditions upon which I 
have now treated. You need it in order to escape 
the snares of vice ; in order to realize your posi- 
tion in its dangers, responsibilities, and oppor- 
tunities, in order that you may heed the claims of 
the time, and to develop a true manliness. You 
need it for the sins that beset you, the duties that 
call you, the trials that will come upon you. I 
beseech you, then, by all these motives, by all that 
commends to you your own true welfare, the re- 
quirements of God, and the love of the Eedeemer, 
to realize its importance, and to accept its terms. 

Many of you have seen those four pictures 
which represent man's course down the stream of 



104 TKUE MANLINESS. 

Time. The deceased artist has appropriately re- 
presented youth as just setting out from the shore. 
The angel that had been standing in the prow of 
the boat, is leaving him to his own guidance. He 
has taken the helm in his hand. His eye dances 
with hope, his breast heaves with confidence, 
while before him in the hazy distance loom the 
shining pinnacles of fame. Soon he will be abroad. 
Soon he will be drifting down that glassy, mystic 
river, along those varying shores, among those 
caverns, and beneath those thunderous clouds ! 
Who, at witnessing such a scene in real action, 
would not feel his soul stirred with a hope, a fear, 
and a prayer ? My young friends, that is your 
position. God grant that you — that all of us — 
may possess the true strength and guidance as 
thus we sweep along, so that we may escape these 
flowery deceits, those sharp and fearful rocks — so 
that if we are spared to reach that fourth period 
of bent frame and withered hairs, when one by 
one the hours drop from our time-worn bark, and 
Ave find it settling down upon " the dim, unsounded 
ocean of eternity," we may look up calmly at angel- 
faces that await us, and feel that death and cir- 
cumstance have plucked away no real good ; for 
in ourselves we bear the essential treasure, the 
richest freight of our " Voyage of Life." 



MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CRYSTAL 
PALACE. 

" Thou madest hjn to have dominion over the works of thy hands." 

Psalms viii. G. 

This declaration qualifies the contrast between 
man and the universe in which he dwells. That 
contrast is the first suggestion that naturally arises 
upon taking a survey of the starry heavens, and 
the wide reaches of space in which we are embo- 
somed. And if, in the age of the Psalmist, it 
struck the mind with astonishment and awe, how 
much more under the sweep of modern science ! 
Turning from the vision of the telescope, with its 
revelations of inconceivable time and distance, 
and countless systems, and majestic laws ; — turning 
from all this to the aspect of man, whose entire 
field of action is but a speck among these immen- 
sities, and the history of all whose generations 
appears like a stream of sparkling vapor trailing 
only for a moment across the sky, how natural is 
it to exclaim, " What is man, that Thou art mind- 



106 CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFECTION OF 

ful of him, or the son of man, that Thou visitest 
him." 

And yet this immense disparity cannot conceal 
the fact that Man is cared for, and visited, and 
richly endowed with glory and lionor. And we 
find the explanation of this fact in his relation to 
an order of being superior to the forms and forces 
of the material world. From this he derives his 
dignity, and in this is comprehended the purpose 
of his creation. Physically, he is but an atom in 
space, and a pulsation in time. Spiritually, the 
entire outward universe receives significance from 
him, and the scope of his existence stretches 
beyond the stars. Leaving the materialist to 
explain the attitude of Man upon the earth, and 
to bring all the facts of the case in agreement 
with his hypothesis if he can, I pass to consider 
the illustration of this spiritual and christian con- 
ception, which is afforded by the text. 

It declares at once the superiority of man over 
the outward world ; and, whatever mysteries may 
be involved with his life, it proclaims one specific 
purpose for which he was created — " Thou madest 
him to have dominion over the works of Thy 
hands !" It does not say that this is all that man 
was made and placed upon the earth for. And 
yet, my friends, I think we shall find that, in the 
profoundest and most comprehensive sense, this is 



TRUE MAHLINESS. 107 

the complete end of his existence in the present 
state. Dominion over the outward world, over 
the forms and forces of matter, — hence come the 
glory and honor with which God permits him to 
be crowned. Through this he manifests the nature 
of one made " a little lower than the angels." In 
fact, all the significance of his being is unfolded 
in proportion as he masters things around him. 
He only appears peculiarly as man, the ascendant 
of this lower sphere, and the heir of a higher, as 
he subdues it to his use, transmutes it into the 
forms of his thought, and transfigures it with 
institutions. Any mode of human action is to be 
pronounced excellent, in proportion as it develops 
this mastery. The most inspiring records of history 
are those which chronicle such triumphs. In the 
rudest forms of creative industry they reveal the 
distinction between human nature and the brute, 
and its relations to the Divine. They exhibit man, 
the inventor, turning shapeless matter to instru- 
ments of utility and power ; employing the winds, 
harnessing the flame, and mating his wall with the 
lightning. They represent man, the artist, dissolv- 
ing the gross forms into pictured symbols of 
beauty, and drawing from them a perpetual 
melody. They show us man, the discoverer, ever 
pressing into the unknown, stretching his measure 
from planet to planet, or from system to system. 



lOS cnEisriAXiTV xiin terfection of 

until constellations and firmaments, in the grasp 
of his thought, are reduced to unity, and harmo- 
nized by law. They tell us of man, the civilizer, 
expanding savage rudeness into enlightened 
polity, and, from age to age, leading on the glories 
of entei-prise, and knowledge, and religion. In 
fine, I repeat, the points of special interest, in his 
individual or his social capacity, appear in the 
acquisition of a power for which he must often 
stoop in humility — a mastery which he must win 
by service. 

Any period or event, therefore, which peculi- 
arly illustrates this dominion of man over the 
forms and forces of the material world, must have 
a moral significance, because it illustrates also the 
meaning of his existence upon the earth, and the 
plan of Providence. And this is the connection 
which exists between the statement of the text and 
that Palace of Industry, whose doors were opened 
the past week. It contains the trophies and cele- 
brates the triumphs of labor — the victorj' of human 
skill over matter. Xature stands there, like some 
gorgeous and vanquished barbarian, ministering to 
every conceit of its conqueror, and surrendering 
its treasures to his will. And as one gazes upon 
those products of toil and shapes of art, trans- 
ported from the four quarters of the globe, wrought 
by the loom and the anvil, dragged from the 



TliUE MANLIISESS. 10^ 

quarrj and the mine, stamped all over witli man's 
image and superscription, surely the first expres- 
sion that springs to his lips is this : " Thou madest 
him to have dominion over the works of Thy 
hands !" This was the expression of that grand, 
impressive ceremony, with its dignitaries and its 
multitudes, with its banners and towering phimes, 
with its fervent prayers, and its choral hallelujahs 
swelling over all. It w^as a recognition of the 
mission of man upon the earth, and an appeal to 
God for the legitimacy of labor. It was felt to be 
something in which the most jubilant pulsations of 
the human breast might fitly blend with its most 
solemn devotion. It was not a holiday show, 
merely to amuse. It was not a festival of passion. 
It was not a celebration of destructive victory, and 
of man's supremacy over man, by fire or flood ; 
but of constructive achievement — of man's suprem- 
acy over nature, by the strength of his sinews and 
the sweat of his brow. It was the coronation of 
toil, enthroned upon its implements, with the sym- 
bols of use and beauty in its hands, and the dignity 
of aspiring manhood gleaming on its dusky fore- 
head. It was a reiteration of the acknowledgment 
already given by the present age of the preemi- 
nent honor which belongs to peaceful industry. It 
was a confession of the blessing which was 
wrapped up in the primeval curse. It was the 



110 CHRISTIANITY THE I'EKFECTION OF 

distinct articulation of the ringing hammers and 
the moving wheels which have accompanied the 
march of the race for thousands of years. 

In embodying the forms of labor represented in 
that Crystal Palace, I have spoken of use and of 
hmuty. And it should be remembered that each 
of these is a legitimate method of man's mastery 
over the outward world. We shall most surely 
miss the significance of such an exhibition, if we 
regard it as a mere show, and seek in it only that 
which allures the eye and pleases the taste. If we 
propose to make a moral estimate of labor, and to 
carry it up to its Divine intention, we must not 
overlook any contrivance which is calculated to 
assist man in his needs and his efforts. We must 
place foremost in value the implements of solid 
use. For while the essence of all misery is in 
absolute idleness, and man would be wretched 
indeed if set free from all necessity for toil, what- 
ever limits that necessity, and lifts him above 
material drudgery into an opportunity for bodily 
relaxation, and for the exercise of his higher 
faculties, is surely a manifestation of the law of 
progress. It is not merely the wonderful inge- 
nuity of the human mind that we should admire 
in such instances, but the evident intention of that 
Providen(^e which, while it has ordained that man 
shall acquire dominion only through toil, does not 



TRUE MANLINESS. Ill 

mean that he shall be the bond-slave of nature, 
instead of its master — or fettered to any one kind 
of work. And this is the general solution which 
I adopt of the perplexing problem : " What is to 
be done with the poor, if these labor-saving ma- 
chines are multiplied ?" " What is to be left for 
human lingers, when almost everything that man 
can do is accomplished by one of these inanimate, 
yet strange and almost conscious agents ?" I say, 
no general development of this kind ever induces 
general suifering in the end. There is, doubtless, 
a Providence in it, lifting up the entire mass of 
humanity to a higher level of existence, and to 
other kinds of effort. So, welcome, first of all, 
every implement of use, that helps the tired hand 
or the aching eyes, that facilitates the results of 
labor or limits the periods of drudgery ; for here, 
indeed, is manifest the dominion which man is 
appointed to achieve over the outward world ! 

But equally in fault is he who, in such an Exhi- 
bition of Industry, turns away with contempt from 
everything that is not useful, according to his defi- 
nition of that terra. For really, my friends, the 
truly beautiful is useful. And no man needs this 
kind of help so much as he who ignores it ; whose 
conception of utility is limited to the bounds of a 
coarse, material interest, and the service of the 
senses. Whv, vi'hat does he think of this vast 



112 C^RISTIA^-ITY THK rEKFECTION OF 

Palace of Industry all around him, with enam- 
elled floor, and its star-sj^rinkled dome, where the 
Divine Intelligence, working for illimitable ages, 
has mingled the materials of use with the expres- 
sion of beauty? What does be make of the con- 
tributions which Summer brings to this great 
Exhibition, of the npholstery of the sunset, and 
the tent of midnight ? Does he not wonder that 
the leaves should put on such pomp for the dying 
year, and that such useless things as flowers should 
line the traveller's dusty way ? The justification 
of the beautiful is in an instinct of the human 
mind which allies it to the Divine : if man has 
wrought a curve of grace, or fixed a tint of beauty, 
it has been copied from that perfect handiwork 
which transcends all his ideas. And, surely, that 
which is an instrument or an expression of the 
finer faculties of our nature, must be at least as 
closely allied to the great purpose of obtaining 
dominion over outward things, as that which 
enables us to get along in the world, and to master 
its rougher obstacles. In studying the Industry 
of all Nations, then, and the results of all kinds 
of genius, let us recognize the beauty of use and 
the use of beauty, and, in both these forms, the 
Providential Purpose and the dignity of that 
labor by which man gains dominion over the 
•material world. 



TRUE XfANLINESS. 113 

But I proceed to remark, in tlie second place, 
that this is not merely a dominion of mannal force 
and dexterity. It is an achievement of Mind, — ■ 
it is the triumph of Intelligence. The Crystal 
Palace, whose doors have just been opened, ex- 
hibits the results of sweat and muscle ; of patient, 
plodding, superintended toil ; and does honor to 
these. But it illustrates something greater than 
these. It represents Ideas. It expresses not only 
the material result, but the abstract process, — not 
only the invention, but the inventor's thought. 
Oh ! it is but a meagre result to gather from the 
present opportunity simply the impression of won- 
derful achievement, or bulky force — an impression 
of the workshop and the fact-^ry — of files and 
hammers and huge engines. Think of the sha- 
dowy images in the conceiving mind that preceded 
all these forms ! Think of the inspiring ideas 
without which these forms had never existed ! 
Think what a filmy conceit the ship once Avas, 
and the steam-engine, and the glorious printing- 
press ! Out of bodiless thought were evolved 
these instruments of use, and these shapes of 
beauty. Out of silence and abstractions leaped 
these thundering forces that carry the wealth of 
nations, and change the face of epochs. "What 
courage, what patient experiment and meditation ; 
what martyr-pains of poverty, and ridicule, and 



114: CIiraSTIANITY THE PEKFECTION OF 

disappointment, stand away behind these noble 
implements ! What distant reaches of human 
effort are linked together here ! The coarse 
utensil upon which you hardly deign to look, is 
the result of some fact plucked in the loneliest 
paths of intellectual exploration, and beneath the 
familiarity of Art are concealed the sublimities of 
Nature. And here, my friends, is the real force 
by which man conquers the outward world. He 
obtains the dominion not by the strong muscle, or 
the diligent hand, but by ideas. The bee and the 
beaver can construct, but they do not invent. 
They build as they built thousands of years ago. 
But man, continually inspired by fresh concep- 
tions, is ever changing, ever improving, ever 
making nature more plastic and submissive. The 
Crystal Palace, therefore, not only illustrates the 
Providential dignity of labor, but the power of 
ideas. And such must have been the thought of 
every reflecting person who witnessed that inau- 
guration. Not merely the assembled fruits of 
industry, but the entire spectacle, the rejoicing 
multitude, the starred bunting overhead, the flags 
of many nations floating in peaceful harmony'-, the 
Fact itself, — all were the triumph and expression 
of certain ideas. They were the expression of 
thoughts, truths, — endeavors that have long been 
working in the earth. In short, this is an exhibi- 



TEUE MANLINESS. 115 

tion not merely of the world in its one phase of 
industry, but of the actual civilization of the world 
at the present time, — it shows what ideas are busy 
or uppermost in our age. And if this is the case, 
surely there is pregnant moral significance in this 
Crystal Palace. Kegarding it in this light — re- 
garding it as a fit representative and embodiment 
-of the time — what does it show the character of 
our age to be? Speaking generally, I observe 
that it indicates a conJUcting and undecisive period, 
involving great evils, but with a growing and 
emergent good. Almost all the prominent features 
of the time, so strikingly exhibited in this Palace 
of Industry, have this perplexing quality, — this 
mixture of great good and evil. As the first 
thing that may be specified, it shows our age to 
be one of vast material achievement. It is quite 
unnecessary for me to dwell upon this fact, which 
it is the avowed object of this exhibition to illus- 
trate, and which is so broad and evident upon the 
face of the time. ISTever before was there such 
an age of invention — of wonderful discovery, of 
science, applied to the most minute and common 
uses. Other generations of men may have been 
equally ingenious and more skillful. Could the 
departed nations of antiquity return, and bring 
their contributions to the Crystal Palace, they 
might astonish us with an extensive illustration 



116 CHRISTIANITY TIIE PERFECTIOX OF 

of tlie maxim that there is " nothing new under 
the sun ;" — shaming our boasted superiority with 
specimens of their lost arts, and refuting it with 
their forms of inimitable beauty. But that which 
may have more than equalled us in symmetry and 
in expression, shrinks before our achievements of 
comprehensiveness and universality. Ours are 
inventions which overleap the barriers of nation- 
ality, and weave together the interests of the race. 
Ours are agencies that lift up the man, and subju- 
gate nature for universal man. AV^e hold the 
elements with reins, and the humblest laborer is 
ministered to, and carried by servitors that make 
the pomp of old Csesars contemptible. AVhat was 
the chariot of Pompey, or Cleopatra's barge, com- 
pared to the rushing car in w^hich the poorest may 
ride, or the steamship mingling foam and lire ? 
What grandeur in this universality of material 
agencies ? How mean and discreditable the old 
prejudices and limits begin to look ! What a set 
of uncouth dissolving views the armed sentinels 
and the walled towns ! How the one blood of all 
nations of men begins to flow together ! What 
reciprocities, what unities, as the world becomes 
more and more like a single organic body, with 
the steam-engine for its beating heart, and its 
nerves of electric wire ! 

But, my friends, those material achievements 



TRUE MANLINESS. 117 

may not be triumphs after all. We may be cor- 
rupted by the very powers we have conquered, 
and instead of obtaining the mastery over them, 
be absorbed by them. I am sure we must see 
the danger of this, when we consider the luxury 
and the sensuality of the time. Probably in no 
other age, in no other place, has there been 
deeper corruption, or a more complete surrender 
of the highest faculties of our nature to the forms 
of outward and gross living, than in this very 
city, that so fitly bears upon its breast the Crys- 
tal Palace, as a type and expression of modern 
civilization. The achievement and the tendency, 
the glory and the peril, are involved with each 
other. And while we gaze upon these costly or- 
naments, these delicate shapes, these instruments 
of rare invention, and admire the industry which 
they represent, and the skill which they display, 
we must also recognize in them the agents of 
temptation and the ministers of luxury, and 
tremble as well as rejoice at this expression of 
the times. 

But, again, regarding the Crystal Palace as 
representing the Civilization of the Age, we see 
what are the present position and relations of the 
Industrial Classes. I have said that the festival 
of the last week was the coronation of Labor ; 
and so it was — and doubtless Labor is honored, 



118 CliKlSTIANlTY THE PERFKCTION OF 

and its dignity is recognized in this age as never 
before. But, my friends, it is one thing to honor 
Labor in the abstract, and it is another thing 
to recognize the claims and allow the rights of 
the Laborer. Men may make a kind of mytho- 
logical impersonation of Industry, and express a 
gi'eat enthusiasm for it — jnst as they do for 
national architecture, or interesting poverty, or 
any other romantic conception — and 3'et recog- 
nize but very feebly the humanity and the in- 
terests of the drudge or the craftsman. It is a 
fine thing to erect a Crystal Palace to represent 
the Industry of all nations : but I Avould like to 
have seen there a representation of the Laborers 
of all j^ations. I would like to have had them 
line the galleries, and look down upon the spec- 
tacle from that magnificent dome. I would like 
to have had them come — the men who have 
served before the furnace, and been blackened 
by the smoke, to make those rich utensils, and 
the women whose heart-strings have been sewed 
into the fine linen and embroidered on the silk. 
I would like to have had them come — from the 
factories of the free North, and the plantations of 
the South — from the mines and garrets of England 
— from the workshops and labor-fields of every 
land. I would like to have had them come, to 
show us what our civilization makes of them — to 



I 



TRUE MANLINESS. 119 

show US much, no doubt, that is cheerful and 
encouraging ; but much, also, proving that it is 
a different thing to honor Industry, from what it 
is to honor the toiler. Nay, the coming of many 
of them there into the midst of that intelli- 
gence and beauty and fine array, with their 
limbs scarred by steam, and their foreheads black- 
ened with smoke, and their uncouth looks, and 
their outlandish garments, would, no doubt, have 
been accounted quite an intrusion upon the res- 
pectabilities of the time and the place. And I 
must accord my assent to what one of our jour- 
nals has said of the real incongruity of that 
opening scene. At the inauguration of Industry, 
almost every class was honored except the real 
workers themselves. There were plumes and 
badges, and white cravats there ; scarcely any of 
the sunburnt foreheads and the hardened palms. 
And this shows how thoroughly still our civiliza- 
tion is entangled with old absurdities and con- 
ventionalisms. 

When the conception which the Crystal Palace 
illustrates shall be fully realized, these feathers 
and bayonets and professional respectabilities will 
not be so exclusively in the foregi-ound, and we 
shall honor the achiever as well as the achieve- 
ment. And that conception will be realized. 
The Doers are to be honored. 



120 CHRISTIANITY TUP: PERFECTION OF 

But, once more, looking upon the Crystal Palace 
as a mirror of our present civilization, we cer- 
tainly discover much to cheer the Philanthropist 
and the Christian. It illustrates great progress, 
peace and unity. Ships of war cover their bat- 
teries with graceful symbols, and bring tokens of 
world-wide amity. The time seems millennial to 
some. There may be, there must be, conflict. 
Yet we see by passing events how hard it is to 
excite war. But, my fi-iends, if this is expressed 
in this great Temple of Industry, consider for a 
moment its concomitants. Cast your eyes over 
the neighborhood of that beautiful structure ; 
observe its dens of vice and sinks of woe. These, 
too, are a part of our civilization. They are 
licensed, permitted, patronized. This illustrates 
what is yet to be done, and the kind of warfare 
yet to be waged. 

You see, then, what a conflicting, mixed, inde- 
cisive epoch ours is, if we take the Crystal Palace 
as representing the prevalent and the active ideas 
of the time. And yet the good is emergent, 
increasing. Such an exhibition would not have 
been possible fifty years ago. It enlarges onr 
ideas of Christianity in the world. It teaches 
patience and faith. Truth and Righteousness do 
not break forth in sharp and sudden shocks. 
Secretly they work down in the deep heart of 



TRUE MANLINESS. 121 

things, leavening the lump. Gradually they pro- 
ceed, like the issues of the morning, in which we 
detect no sudden crisis, in which we hardly ob- 
serve the transition, until bye-and-bye, in place of 
the shadows and the cold gray mist, lo ! a clear, 
transfiguring splendor rests on the mountains and 
the sea. Man has been placed here to have do- 
minion over the world ; — the dominion of Truth 
and Goodness, and not of mere force. Silently 
these conceptions have worked in the soil of 
events, until now we have this beautiful Palace 
of Industry, — a flower unfolding out of the ages, 
rich with the vigor of good men's progress, and 
brilliant with the coloring of their lives, — and yet 
itself, we trust, but as a bud and prophesy of far 
finer and better results. 

But finally, my friends, I detect a still deeper 
significance in the spectacle of the last week, and 
in this Palace of Industry. There is a dominion 
over the outer world mightier still than that 
which is achieved by the strong arm, or the intel- 
ligent brain. It is the dominion, in the highest 
and deepest sense, of a human soul through efibrt 
and thought, and all the discipline of life, until it 
is made strong and complete in itself, freed from 
its bondage to the world, and its dependence upon 
it — freed from the power of its seductions or the 
terror of its ills. It is the chief end of our being 



122 CIIKISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

upon the earth — it is the great victory of Avhich 
all others are symbolical. And if I have said 
that the great j^nrpose for which Man was placed 
here, was to attain dominion over the outer world, 
this is not inconsistent with that end of self-con- 
quest — that inmost triumph which this victory 
implies ; — for that stern and intense struggle 
which we have in our own hearts, what is it but 
a conflict with matter ? Indeed, I do not know 
that the philosophers were very far astray when 
they placed evil in matter. The specific moral 
lesson which this Crystal Palace tenders to us is 
this : — that there is nothing without us that is 
not, comparatively, unsubstantial. We look upon 
those forms of beauty and implements of utility, 
and ask, for what end is all this ? — why is man to 
toil and achieve ? — there must be something be- 
yond all this — can Man be satisfied wuth this 
mere outward splendor ? Would all the riches 
displayed beneath that dome of glass enable 
him to walk through the temptations of life, 
and prepare him the better to meet Death ? 
What is it, if there be not a great object to be 
attained beyond all this toil and struggle ? Cast 
your eye around that glorious array, and if you 
look at it in its moral significance, it teaches us 
that there is a great end in life beyond merely 
toiling and achieving conquests over Matter. It 



TRUE MANLINESS. 123 

teaches us that though we are placed here to toil 
aud to suffer, yet the conquest that most befits us 
to struggle to achieve, is a conquest over our- 
selves, that we may become better and stronger 
Christians. And it tells us that Man can break 
through material limits, and, by the grace of the 
Divine Spirit in his soul, press forward to higher 
activities, and a closer assimilation to Grod 
himself. 



VI. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF REFORM. 

The most potent word of the present day — the 
word that is most significant in its meaning, and 
extensive in its influence — is Reform. Often 
abused, often misapprehended, the delirium of the 
monomaniac, the mock-word of the ignorant and 
the heartless ; yet, in some sense, every mouth 
utters it, and every soul is thrilled by it. It is 
spoken fearfully by the timid conservative, who 
crouches in the shadows of the past, or arrogantly 
assumes that all goodness is enshrined at the altar 
where he worships. It blisters the lips of the 
narrow fanatic who, vaunting boisterously of 
freedom, is the slave of a deformed idea. It is 
discussed by indolent, good-natured men, who 
philosophize in easy chairs, and, sitting at their 
tables of abundance, fervently hope that no one 
starves. And it gushes up from free, strong 
souls, whose feet upon the mountains bring mes- 
sages of joy, who have wrought in the night-time 



126 CHKISTIANITY THE PERFFXTION OF 

M'ith faith and prayer, and -SYbo, looking forth 
upon earth's wide millions, bid them take courage 
and rejoice — for yonder kindles the rising day. 

But now, let us consider seriously, what is the 
idea that lurks under this word Reform. Is it a 
legitimate idea — an idea founded in the nature of 
things ? And, again, what is reform ? Is it a 
principle which as philanthropists and christians, 
we can adopt, and strive, and hope for ? The dis- 
cussion of these questions will furnish what we 
liave to say at this time upon The Philosophy of 
Reform. 

And the first thing that I shall advance, is the 
fact that reform, if not innate, is at least an 
indwelling principle in the soul of every man. 
There lies there a presentiment, often dim and 
unheeded, it may be, yet a presentiment of some- 
thing hetter^ an idea of a greater good to be 
obtained, which renders him dissatisfied with his 
present state, and urges him to seek another. I 
have used a word here which I wish to convey a 
precise meaning. Presentiment ; — not a hope 
only, not a mere wish, not a phantasy ; but a 
revelation of what lies bej'ond us, given in 
glimpses sufficient to show us that something is 
there. We may not say that the soul first reaches 
out after that — this might be a self-created delu- 
sion ; but that first reaches out to the soul, and so 



I 



TRUE MANLINESS. 127 

it is a ■pTO])liecy — a shadow, it may be, yet a sha- 
dow of things to coone, a shadow that falls from 
actual and external objects. And, I say, this 
seems to be, universally, an indwelling principle 
in the human soul. Your primitive man, who 
seeks to clothe his nakedness, though it be in the 
undressed skin of the wild beast that he has just 
torn from his lair, or to build him a shelter, 
though it is only a bark hut, — he acts npon this 
idea of reform. It seems a wide interval between 
such a condition and our refinement and civiliza- 
tion, yet every stage of that interval has been 
passed through gradually. But why should man 
take the first step, without this idea of something 
better, this presentiment of a practical good ? And 
when the first step was taken, why would men 
take the second^ and the tJiird^ and so on, without 
a repetition of the idea? And how would men 
keep progressing, if this idea were not in constant 
action, ever urging them forward ! If human 
progress is a truth, that progress is according to a 
law, as much as the march of the waters, or the 
evolution of geological changes is according to a 
law. And this law is found in the idea of imjiyrove- 
ment — in other words, in the principle of reform. 
If as a race of beings we are made to progress, 
how can we do so unless we alter existing institu- 
tions, and seize upon new and hetterf If every 



128 CHEISTIANITY THE PEKFECTION OF 

custom, or opinion, is suffered to remain precisely 
where it is now, we shall be stationary ; or, rather, 
we shall retrograde, we shall grow worse — for the 
spring of health is action^ and our life becomes 
tainted and stagnant if we do not move. 

Moreover : this principle of reform accounts to 
me for many of the evils that lie around us. The 
vegetable world is limited in its development, and 
soon arrives at perfection. But in the world of 
mind it is not so. No perfect uninspired man has 
yet appeared on the face of the earth. No perfect 
state of society has yet existed, save in the dreams 
of Plato and Sir Thomas More. And what we 
have received has been all conflict, uncertainty, 
darkness mingled with light, the evolution of a 
better state of things only after a painful struggle 
— and then, perhaps, a retrograde movement, or a 
stationary period, which has discouraged men who 
trusted in the good and the true, and given occa- 
sion for others to say — " there is no such thing as 
human progress." But this has all been wisely 
ordered. The tree has grown up at once to a 
perfect tree, because beyond its own mere heing 
there was no ulterior object to secure. But for 
man there is an ulterior object to secure, beyond 
his mere existence. He is not onl}'" to he but to 
'know — not only to obey laws, but to become " a 
law unto himself," and he can only do this by 



tkup: manliness. 12D 

experience and by labor. So he must have some- 
thing to undergo, he must have something to over- 
come. If that which he needs comes directly to 
his hand, he makes no effort to get it, and therefore 
no strength is developed in him. If there is no 
obstacle to overcome, no danger to brave, then 
there will be no self-confidence, which depends 
upon our consciousness of possessing powers, with 
which we cannot become acquainted until some- 
thing occurs to call them into exercise. So it is 
well that man is not made perfect, but that he 
should gi'oiv to perfection. He finds the good, by 
passing through the evil, and appreciates it. The 
weak sinews become strong by their conflict with 
difiiculties. Hope is born in the long night of 
watching and tears. Faith visits us in defeat and 
disappointment, amid the consciousness of earthly 
frailty, and the crumbling tombstones of mor- 
tality. 

But you perceive that the key which explains 
all these hieroglyphics of evil, is the principle of 
reform. If the world of mind, if man and society, 
grew up in each age as they did in the preceding 
ages, exhibiting the invariable sameness and the 
limited development of the trees of the forest, 
then our individual and social evils would be 
inexplicable. We might well ask — " why was 
not the moral world created perfect after it? kind, 



130 CIIKISnANITY THE PEKFECTION OF 

as the vegetable world is created perfect after its 
kind ?" But now, the enigma is solved. There is 
given to man a principle of reform. He is made 
to learn, to Tcnow, and to 2^'og7'ess. He is not 
merely to he, like the zoophyte and the oyster, of 
which we can say that they have sense, and that 
is all ; but he is to do, to create, to evjoy. Poor 
earth-worm as he now seems, he is to become a 
UNIT in God's world, as distinct and as complete as 
a star. From this defiled organism, writhing with 
pain, marred by passion, heel-trampled and neck- 
yoked, are to be developed — by labor, by battle, 
by prayer, — an ever-growing intelligence, and a 
quenchless love, that shaM mean something and 
possess something in the boundless universe of the 
Deity, when the trees may no longer grow, nor 
the rivers run, nor the stars shine, because they 
shall have fulfilled their mission and passed away. 
This principle of reform, then, is a legitimate 
principle, because it is that which urges men to 
contend with existing evils, which evils appear to 
exist, as one great object at least, for the purpose 
of creating energy and virtue — for the purpose of 
exciting ideas and establishing principles, which, 
if not all immediately practical and useful, are 
necesssary to the development of the perfect man. 
Accordingly, we find whenever reforms are 
agitated, that great questions are always raised, 



TRUE MAls'LINESS. 131 

discussion ij Leid upon the most vital interests of 
huraanitj, the distinction between right and wrong 
is clearly brought out, men throw themselves back 
upon jprincijples^ they abandon temporal institu- 
tions for eternal ideas, they go behind the formal 
letter to the living spirit. All of which is by no 
means unaccompanied with evil. We shall have 
vagaries enough. Optimism and ultraism ; theo- 
ries spun with hairs ; schemes of primeval inno- 
cence that provide not even a fig-leaf ; speculations 
that look goi'geous and sym.metrical, but that shall 
vanish when we seek to touch them " w^i-miracu- 
lously enough," as Carlyle would say, because 
they are made out of cloud-land, and glitter with 
the prismatic colors of fancy. Yet all this goes to 
establish what I have said ; — that there is a legiti- 
mate function for the principle of reform, which 
is the great idea that urges us to contend with 
existing evils, and to seek a good that as yet lies 
beyond us; and these very evils exist in order 
that the good may be suggested. And when men 
are roused by them to action, they will, naturally, 
discuss the right and the wrong of things, and 
very naturally go too far, and entertain crude 
notions ; and, by the law of reaction, pass from 
one extreme to the other. It is a natui-al conse- 
quence that the opposition, the ultraism, and the 
indifference, t which I alluded in the commence- 



132 CHRISTIANITY THE PKUFKCTION OF 

nient as being rife in our age, should now prevail. 
Owing, as I think, to the diffusion of knowledge, 
to a better perception of Christianity, and to the 
quick communion of thought that abounds, the 
present age is what it is — peculiarly an age of 
reform. And as it is now, it has always been in 
the world's history. Wherever reform lias been 
agitated, there always have been those who have 
set themselves against it as the fruitful germ of all 
evil — those who have perverted it, and carried it 
into the worst excesses — and those who have stood 
lazily by, and ivished it well, without moving one 
pampered limb to aid the work. But our's, I sa}'', 
is peculiarly an age of reform — an age of far- 
reaching, intense effort. Never so has the great 
cause of humanity been pleaded— never so have 
men looked below the formal, the time-serving, the 
vestments of things, to central and primary ideas. 
Never with such bold and confident hands hav^e 
men laid hold of existing institutions ; and though, 
with the tnie that will stand amid all the shaking, 
I believe that much that is false must yet stand 
for some time also, still I think that glorious and 
beneficial results will grow out of this mighty 
agitation. And I am not afraid because of the 
evils that accompany these things, for I know that 
they naturally appear ; they are the concomitants 
of every period of reform. I know that ultraism 



TRUE MANLINESS. 133 

and passion, and sensuality and selfishness, are 
mixed np in all tliis commotion. I know it is 
likelj if some proposed reforms were realized in 
their present shape, we should have a Pandemo- 
nium, instead of an Eden. I know that mere 
abstractionists, as they sow in dreams, will reap 
shadows. I know that it is idle to suppose that 
every man who broaches something novel has 
therefore got something good, or that every little 
clamorous clique is formidable, and based upon 
some important idea. But I say, once more, 
these are the attendants of every reformation, and 
with all their fermentation and all their shams, 
they prove that a great reality is working at the 
bottom ; — they could not be, did not that reality 
exist. Of all the great reforms of our day, I know 
hardly of one, that, freed from the imperfections 
of individual judgment, and reduced to its funda- 
mental idea, is not based on righteousness and 
truth. 

Thus we see the legitimacy of Keform. It is 
not a sin, like anarchy — it is not a delusion, like 
fanaticism. It belongs to the nature of things. 
It is likely to urge its claims and to agitate society, 
so long as evil and imperfection exist. The only 
difficulty is to define Keform — to ascertain its true 
limits, its legitimate .work. The veriest Conserva- 
tive in the world may say — "Well, I believe in 



134 ciiuisiiANnY Tin-; pkkfkctiox of 

Reform ;" but (lie moveinent tliat is taking place 
never happens to be the Reforni that he believes 
in. The wildest schemer answers that he goes 
"for nothing but Eeform ;" although he bran- 
dishes his torch over a magazine that at the fii'st 
explosion will blow up him and thousands more, 
and shatter, perhaps, the whole framcM'ork of 
societ}^ 

We are led, then, at this point, to discuss our 
second question — W/iat is JReforin'l I answer 
to this, that Eeform comprises both the ideas of 
jpurification and of advancement. Purification 
implies a restoration to a normal condition, or a 
remodeling of what we already have — but not 
the addition of any thing new. In order to 
purify, we may have to go back, instead of foi'- 
ward — back to a primitive state of things, and 
instead of increasing our possessions, may have to 
reduce their number. But this alone does not 
include the whole principle of Eeform, since 
there must be not only an abolition of what is 
wrong, but advancement — advancement in what 
is right, and true, and good. We must ever 
acknowledge the stern necessity of circumstances. 
These constantly bind our attention to present 
wants and future requirements, and are ever 
l^lacing man and society in new positions. We 
may avail ourselves of experience, but we cannot 



TKtTE MANLINESS. 135 

go back into the Past to act. Tliis earth will 
carry iis and ours along with it, as it moves in its 
enormous orbit. And we are carried forward as 
much in time as in space. We leave the old land- 
marks of historj, and come into the new fields of 
experiment — into a sphere that calls for new 
action. It may be true, then, that in some in- 
stances we must go back, but we go back only 
ior princijjies ', we must look around us, and look 
forward, for the application of those principles. 
We do well to strip off encumbrances, our corrup- 
tions and absurdities, and get back to the naked 
truth, since that always remains the same — but, 
when we arrive at that truth, we shall find that 
it needs to be applied to new circumstances. 
We inay find the self-same truth our fathers 
used — a truth that we have forgotten, or have 
never known ; but we cannot act upon that 
truth just as our fathers did. The primitive 
state of man may have been a state much more 
innocent than that in which we are now living, 
but if we reform our present condition, strip it of 
its vices and perversions, we cannot live in all 
things just as the men in the primitive state lived. 
Purification, then, inasmuch as it implies only an 
abolition of existing evils, or a restoration to 
primitive truths, does not comprehend the whole 
principle of Peform. 



136 CIIKISTIAKITY THE PERFECTION OF 

Another idea, then, comes in here — the idea of 
advancement, growth, progress. We must purify 
but we must also increase^ we must abolish but 
we must also huild np, we must repent of wrong 
but we must also gr^ow in righteousness. We 
know not all truth yet. Our fathers did not 
know all truth. The top of their Babel was not 
half so high as one of God's own mountains, and 
we can scarcely see beyond Sirius, or, at best, 
some dim nebulae that hang upon the threshold 
of the firmament. New manifestations burst 
upon us almost every day. In the hallowed 
liglit of memory lies the truth of the past, but 
our eyes look into that gleaming vista tliat opens 
through the horizon before us, and we hear the 
voices of Prophecy saying — " Forward ! Forward ! 
much is yet to be revealed." And if we would 
have a true Reform, I say, we must seize the neio 
truths as they come, and apply them, as much as 
we would preserve the old truths and apply them. 
Man and society need not only to be purified, they 
need to progress; and that is the true Eeform, 
which, purging them from mighty and hoary 
evils, impels them forward with glorious develop- 
ments. 

We see, then, that in every ti'ue Reform, there 
is a conservative and a radical element — a resto- 
rative and a p 'ogressive princij)le. Of course, 



TRUE MANLINESS. 



137 



tten, the strict Conservative and the strict Radi- 
cal are both wrong — he who would cling to every- 
thing, and he who would uproot everything. 

My objection to the strict Conservative is, not 
that he holds back in the tide of Reform, but 
that he holds on to all things just as they are — 
and not merely to the good that is in all things. 
He loves existing institutions because they happen 
to exist, and for no other reason. He loves old 
customs because they are old, and he is very com- 
fortable under them. Too often when we come 
to analyze his conservatism, the whole reason of 
it is found in sheer, downright selfishness. He 
hates to be disturbed. If the movement prevails 
he must move too, and he dislikes the exertion 
and the sacrijSce. He has got a snug corner of 
the world, and ample means to live, and surely, 
he thinks, the Avorld is w^ell enough as it is. It is 
natural that he should think so. But the poor 
bondman, who labors in blood and tears, thinks 
that the world is not well enough as it is, and it 
is evident that there must be some other criteria 
than the convenience of one man, or of one class 
of men. 

Or, if the Conservative is not selfish, he is an 
alarmist, and as much deluded as the veriest 
fanatic. He exercises no discrimination. Every 
plan that is proposed to alter existing institutions, 



138 CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFECTIOX OF 

to bini looks heretical and dangerous, because he 
will not set himself to work candidly to inves- 
tigate the matter, but sees through his prejudices, 
and acts from his old habits of thinking. At the 
mere mention of the word Reform^ vague ideas 
of unsettleraent and confusion rush upon him ; he 
sees all things in chaos — nothing but licentious- 
ness ana destruction, blood and flame ; and, 
honestly, scared, no doubt, he vociferates from 
the very depth of his lungs — " Great is Diana of 
the Ephesians !" This, you perceive, is all clamor 
and assumption. There is no idea either oi puri- 
fication, or of advancement. All things must re- 
main as they are, for they are as good as they can 
be. And, moreover, there is evidently but little 
knowledge of, and therefore no confidence in, 
Truth. The strict Conservative says that Truth is 
in danger. It is the idlest fear in the world. It 
plainl}' indicates no intimacy with the truth. He 
who has communed with great principles, knows 
that they are everlasting, and that nothing can 
shake them from their orbits. lie may deplore 
the licentiousness that stalks abroad in the name 
of liberty. He may wonder at the delusion that 
runs through the multitude like a contagious 
disease. He may mourn over the licentiousness 
and the sin that must take place ere the world 
shall secure the right and tlie srood — at the bitter 



TRUE MANLINESS. 139 

draught that men must drink ere they find the 
pearl of experience that lies at the bottom. But 
he has no fear for the truth. They who are 
alarmed, lest the world should be turned upside 
down, have but little reverence, and little faith. 
They fear man, more than they trust Omnipo- 
tence. The world turned upside down ! Why, 
the world is hung upon a balance. Man cannot 
move it. With all his engines, with all his subtle 
inventions, he cannot move it a hair's breadth. 
And this, because it depends not upon mechanical 
forces, not upon the law of gravity — but because 
God hung it there ! 

My objection, then, to the strict Conservative is, 
that he allows no movement, either forwai'd b}^ 
way of advancement^ nor backward by way of 
'purification / but wants all things to remain as 
thej^ are, which nature will not permit, since by 
lier laws all things move in some way, either in 
growth, or decline. And I object to the Conser- 
vative, because with all his fears for Goodness 
and Truth, he evidently knows but little of either, 
else he would exercise more discrimination, and 
while clinging to the good would let the had go, 
and thus be a Reformer — and, also, he would be 
willing to trust truth in every encounter, knowing 
it to be eternal and omnipotent. I object to the 
Conservative, because he has no faith in progress 



140 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

— lie too often acts from a selfish motive — he 
consults not his reason^ but \ivs, fears. 

The Conservative sometimes employs ingenious 
arguments to defend his position. But I deem 
them fallacious. He says, that he is willing to 
grant that society is somewhat out of joint, but, 
he asks — " how do I know that you will better 
these things ? Your experiments," he says, " may 
be dangerous. It is a fearful thing to tamper 
with the existing order. Your medicine may 
prove but a quack nostrum, and that which you 
give to cure, may only aggravate the disease." 
To this I answer, that we must act in such cases 
as we do in other matters. Because we some- 
times fail, we do not therefore hesitate to make 
other experiments. Everything good and great 
is wrouglit in such trials — it is a law of our being. 
In tliis matter of Reform we must trust reason 
and common sense. AVe must believe our eyes 
and hands and intellects. We may be assured 
of tlie correctness of a principle, of the truth and 
right of a plan, if we M-ill. We can tell whether 
the bridge that shall cross the stream is safe oi 
not. If it is made of straw it evidently is not 
— if made of wood, or stone, or iron, it probably 
is. The old quibble raised by Hume, as to how 
we know whether an article presented to us is 
what it appears to be, is more ingenious than 



TKUE MANLINESS. 141 

sound ; if we halted upon it we should soon 
stop the machinery of practical life. Although 
we may be often cheated by the false and the 
vile, we intuitively know the true and the right 
— for the true and the right will be recognized 
and found to be the same the wide world over. 
Experience famishes us with many criteria, and 
reason will supply many more. We must not be 
rash ; we must not adopt everything as it comes, 
but compare, re-*1ect, examine — and fear not the 
result. And is it not better even to move at a 
risk^ than not to move at all ? This Conservative 
argument was as valid countless ages back, as 
it is now. And if men had heeded it, the race 
would be now where it was countless ages ago. 
But they did not heed it. They took a step for- 
ward — a step at a time, to be sure — but still a 
step forward, even though it was in the untried 
path of experiment. I do not like the legitimate 
bearings of this argument. It wall do as well 
for the Grand Turk as for the professed Repub- 
lican — it will serve the high Tories of England, 
as well as any Conservative in this country. 
Enough, that reason decides after calm reflection. 
Enough, that all that intuitively recognizes the 
Good and the True, appeals in our bosoms. 
Enough, if we have these, to venture forward, 
even hazarding by experiment the issue which, at 



14:2 CIIKISTIA^-lTl THE TEKFECTIOX OF 

the worst, can produce evils scarcely more aggra- 
vated than those which already exist. 

" But," says the Conservative, " I have no faith 
in this doctrine of Human Progress. It is a 
chimera ; to speak more coarsely but pointedly, it 
is a humbug. The race, to be sure, seems to ad- 
vance at some points — but at other points it has 
retrograded ; and I do not know, after the account 
is figured up and the balance struck, but that it 
is best to let all things remain pretty much as they 
are." Now let us clearly understand what is 
meant by Human Progress. It must be distinctly 
separated from the doctrine of Human Perfecti- 
hility. That men in this world will ever be, in all 
respects, perfect, is one doctrine — and that meu 
will pass from lower degrees of excellence up to 
higher, and maintain their advantage., is another 
doctrine. This last is the doctrine of Human 
Progress. That our age holds an amount of 
refinement and. civilization that preceding ages 
did not have, seems evident. We may not see 
minutely how this operation of human progress 
goes on — we may not be able to trace the transfu- 
sion of the good and the true through every par- 
ticle and member. But we see the grand result. 
So the great ocean comes on imperceptibly. Men 
build their huts at the foot of some hnge mountain, 
and till the green fields that spread out before 



TRUE MANLINESS. l-iS 

them — thinking nothing so permanent. But, hj~ 
and-bj, other men come that way, and the green 
fields are all gone. The summer fruit has long 
since been gathered. Where the husbandman 
found his wealth, the fisher draws his support — 
where the sickles whispered to the bending corn, 
the ships of war go sheeting by — and the old 
mountain has become a gray and wave-beaten 
crag, a landmark to the distant mariner, and a 
turret where the sea-bird screams. 

But this was accomplished imperceptihli/. One 
generation may not have witnessed the advance- 
ment of the waters — another may have passed 
away without noting it ; but slowly they kept ad- 
vancing. And by-and-by, all men saw it — saw 
the grand result, though they did not mark each 
successive operation. So with human progress. 
One age may scarcely perceive it, and another 
may die without faith in it ; but we must take 
some distant period that is not too closely blended 
with our time, and compare that with the present, 
and in the grand result we shall discover that 
there has been human progress. 

Still, some may say, " Yes, there has been pro- 
gress, but not over the w^hole world — there have 
been salient points, but also retreating angles, and 
when you speak of human progress you must ap- 
peal to the world at large — say, has that ad- 



144: CIIIIISTIANITY Till!; rKKFECTlON OV 

vanced ?" I answer, tliat in the world, somewhere, 
there has been a constant tendency to advance- 
ment. Even the dark times have been seasons of 
fruition — the middle ages nourished and prepared 
glorious elements of human reformation. If one 
nation has lost the thread of advancement, another 
has taken it up — and so the Avork has gone for- 
ward ; if not in the race, as a whole, at any one 
time, yet in the race somewhere. But the race is 
fundamentally the same, and what may be predi- 
cated of a portion of mankind as belonging es- 
sentially to humanity, may be predicated of the 
whole, and so in the advancement of a portioti of 
the race, the whole becomes hopeful. The capa- 
city of the race for 'progress has heen demonstrated. 
Is that capacity never to be gratified ? Though the 
period never has been that all the race were at the 
same time on the same level — who shall say that 
the time never will come? That it never can 
come? Who shall say, so long as the capacity 
exists, how quick the transfusion of what is ex- 
cellent in one portion may be made through the 
whole ? A victory over the formal Asiatic, grim 
and bloody as it is, may be one agent of such trans- 
fusion. A triumph of machinery may help to ac- 
complish it. The steam-car may carry truth and 
light over drifted deserts and frozen mountains. 
The march of opinion, aided by circumstances, 



TEUE MANLINESS. 145 

may penetrate to lands that never knew the com- 
merce of Phoenicia, or the wdsdom of Athens — 
where Alexander never ventured with his hosts, 
and where Csesar turned back his eagles. This is 
the main point — not universal progress, but human 
progress — not progress everywhere^ but progress 
somewhere. Grant but that, and all humanity 
becomes hopeful — grant but the capacity, and the 
doctrine is practicable — let the law be in operation 
only at one point, still it is a law^ and as such is 
to be heeded and acted upon. Old notions may 
die, but new notions shall spring up. Let the 
principle be at work, and no one can limit the 
result. It may take a longer sweep of ages than 
have yet passed over mankind, to bring all na- 
tions to the same point of advancement ; some 
nations, now here and now there, may always be 
in advance of others, yet if the others advance also, 
the great law will be in operation. And no people 
shall have lived or died in vain. Into the deepest 
sepulchres of the Old and the Past a new life 
shall be kindled, showing that they have not 
waited so long for nothing. Dim Meroe will 
shout freedom from beyond the fountains of the 
Nile, and the stony lips of the Sphynx shall preach 
the Gospel ! 

At least, let me say to the Conservative, that if 
there is progress where he stands, he is bound to 



146 CHRISTIANITY THIi PERFECTION OF 

act upon tliat progress. His croaking is of no 
wortli at all — his action may at least accomplish 
some present good. Grant that, in the end, it 
shall come to naught. Now it is progress, now it 
is improvement. Let him strive to promote that 
improvement. Enough, that the age in which he 
lives, and the people with whom ho is associated, 
are asking for light. Let him admit the light, 
and not speculate, as to whether the light will go 
out ages after he is dead. Let him not peer 
through all the corners of the earth, and point to 
all the sleeping nations, as an argument why his 
own should sleep also. 

With this I dismiss the Conservative and his 
arguments, and pass to consider the strict Radi- 
cal, who, I say, is also wrong. He who wages 
war with all existing institutions, is as bad as ho 
who holds on to all existing institutions — perhaps 
worse. There is always some good to be prc- 
sei-Ted. To think otherwise, is to calumniate the 
past, and deny the Agency of Providence. In 
order to reform, it is not necessary nor practi- 
cable, to level all existing institutions to the dust 
at one stroke, and drive the ploughshare over 
them. If they do not actually think so, there are 
some men who speak as if they owed nothing to 
the Past or the Present — as if these were naught 
bnt hindrances to human progress. But if I un- 



TRUE MANLINESS. 147 

derstancl progress, it is the gradual passage from 
one condition to another, each link in the chain 
being necessary to the consummation. If human 
nature grows, it must have something to grow out 
of, and therefore it is indebted to that something. 
Your reform will not create itself, nor will it be 
born mature, nor can it be produced in the im- 
palpable air. You must use what exists in order 
to build up what shall be. If you strike away 
every vestige of the past and the present, upon 
what will you stand for the future? No — no — 
you cannot get out of the world in order to move 
the world. You must stand upon this old firm 
earth just as it is, and try to make it hetter. The 
plant that shall blossom unto an immortal flower- 
ing must assimilate to itself elements that have 
been winnowed in- the storms and changes of the 
Past. The harvest of human effort, and hope and 
prayer, will spring up in the furrows of by-gone 
revelations, out from the embers of sin, and the 
ashes of martyrdom, and the soil of blood-soaked 
battle-fields. 

To the strict Radical I object, moreover, that if 
he does not actually seek thus to destroy at once 
all existing organizations, he often does what 
amounts to the same thing. He attempts to in- 
troduce principles and institutions that are imprac- 
ticable, because they are fitted for an entirely 



1J:8 CIIKISTIANITY THE PEKFECTION OF 

different state of things, for an advanced era of 
humanity, for a golden age, a time of perfection. 
But between our present state and such an eleva- 
ted condition, a wide space intervenes. Every 
inch of ground, between this point and that, is to 
be trodden gradually. His Eeform is impalpable, 
because it does not connect with what has gone 
before — we cannot reach it from where we stand 
- nnd if we would advance to it, we have nothing 
to advance upon. It is premature, and, not re- 
garding the Past and the Present, is the same as 
if it rejected them. I think that many radicals 
are of this class. There are some, I presume, who 
disgrace every attempted Reform — who seek to 
overturn all things, in order that they may gratify 
their revenge and their lusts. But these are vile 
men, who do not listen to reason. But, I say, 
many are of the class to which I just alluded. 
They are virtuous but dreamy. They speculate 
too much. Their philosophy may be very good, 
but they want common sense. Their logic is 
sound so long as we confine it to abstract princi- 
ples, but it cannot stand the ordeal of stubborn 
fads. We may hope for the future, but we must 
act in the present. We cannot forestall nature, 
nor renovate society by steam. 

Again; — your Radical is frequently a mere 
grumbler. His sole function, in that case, seems 



TRUE MANLINESS. 149 

to be finding fault. He has a shrewd wit, per- 
haps, and cultivates a sharp satire, which are often 
effectual, and sometimes amusing. It makes us 
laugh when he shakes some respectable old rotten- 
ness, or when decentlj-clothed sin winces at his 
punctures. But, after all, this is an unamiable 
and unprofitable function. It is the easiest thing 
in the world to find fault. It requires no great 
power to pull down, or to pick in pieces. He 
who takes away without giving something instead, 
performs no grateful ofiice. If you take from a 
poor man his ragged cloak, and give him no other 
clothing, he will hardly call you his benefactor. 
Now the true Reformer not only removes the bad 
— ho gives us something better. He has not only 
" a torch for burning, but a hammer for build- 
ing." At least he will have pity for the evils 
that he cannot help, and, while he bears them 
with meek humility, will ever look forward with 
hope and faith. The fault-finding Radical knows 
not the true spirit of Reform. This seeks to 
build up, to develop, knowing that in this way 
evil is best destroyed. It will not pluck the 
crutch from the cripple — but will seek to heal 
his lameness. It will not undermine the faith of 
childhood's simple hymn, but will anoint its lips, 
and teach its faltering voice to flow in deep and 
sweet hosannas. 



150 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

But, let rae say further, the Eadical often mani- 
fests a bad spirit. He talks much of jDhilanthropy 
with his lips, but his heart cherishes bitterness. 
He speaks of reason and kindness, but as often 
vociferates and declaims. He complains of per- 
secution, but is very intolerant. He is boastfully 
confident of ^he strength of his opinions, but frets 
and fumes if any one opposes him. He professes 
to love the race, but denounces the world, because 
it misunderstands or will not believe him. He is 
as busy, and as spiteful, as a wasp. This is not 
the spirit of the true reformer. He is calm and 
mild, mighty against sin, hurling burning truths 
at every wrong, but still preserving, amid it all, 
a loving heart. He is fearless and unfaltering — 
he presses right on with his mission ; but he does 
not court j)ersecution, or pray for martyrdom. He 
is contented to let truth bide its time, and is 
careful that he does not injure it by rashness and 
impropriety, as much as by sluggishness or denial. 
He will not be angry if men do not believe him 
at the first announcement. He is contented if he 
may only preach the truth, for he knows that once 
scattered abroad, it can never die. It may not 
blossom until long after he is dead — but what of 
that ? The summer rains and winter snows shall 
work for it ; and, long after his voice is hushed, 
and his eye dark, his very dust shall nourish it — 



TRUE MANLINESS, 151 

for it will blossom at last ! Such is the true Ee- 
former. Yon see that the rash and angiy Eadical 
differs in much from him. 

I find, then, in strict radicalism, as many ob- 
jections as I do in strict conservatism. The one 
holds on to all things, the other would destroy all 
things — the one will not move at all, the other 
moves too fast — the one is too complacent, the 
other too dissatisfied — the one denounces all who 
go from him, the other is an^ry with all who will 
not come to him. 

But now between all this there is a middle 
course^ in which a true radicalism and a true 
conservatism combine. There 18 such a thing as 
Eefokm. "We have seen that it is a legitimate 
principle ever working in the souls of men. The 
errors and woes with which we are surrounded, 
are not meant to abide. This reign of blood and 
violence — ^is it destined to last forever ? These 
shams that appear on dusty parchment, in feudal 
distinctions, and legal wrongs, shall they not one 
day dissolve and pass away? Absolute Conser- 
vatism is false to our better nature, to our hopes 
and our capacities. But this true Reform works 
by a law of nature, and, like all nature's laws, is 
not to be accelerated, or counterfeited, Slowlj^ 
must the work go on — yet it will go on. It is life, 
it is -reality — dreams and speculations are not it. 



152 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

Tlie Good, the Good alone, it labors to secure — the 
Good that is in the past, the Good that is in the 
future. It labors to remove evil hy piirijication 
and by advancement. It holds on to the hallowed 
that has gone before — it reaches out to the true 
that is to come. The spirit of true Reform, 
neither too fast, nor too slow, both conservative 
and progressive, may be described, with a slight 
alteration, in the words of Goethe : 

" Like ^s a star 
That maketh not haste, 
That taketh not rest, 
Is it ever fulfilling 
Its God-given hest." 

Thus, my friends, I have given you some crude 
ideas upon the Philosophy of Reform. I thought 
it would not be uninteresting, nor unprofitable, to 
analyze somewhat, that about which so much is 
said in our day — concerning which so many ex- 
aggerated hopes and groundless fears are enter- 
tained. Let us not be anarchists — ^let us not be 
alarmists. Let us be Reformers — that is, up- 
builders ; neither absolute Conservatives, nor 
absolute Radicals, but laborers for the Good 
wherever we find it — having faith in Reform. 
Let us not suppose that our age can do every- 
thing, or that men are about to become perfect. 
Neither let us fear that the world will be turned 
upside down, nor deem that all things are best as 



TEUE MANLINESS. 153 

thej are. Let ns have our harness on, ready when 
the trumpet sounds to do the best we can for the 
Right, the Good, and the True. 

But, having thus decided for the legitimacy of 
Eeform, I must not pause without asserting the 
ground on which my faith in its success is founded. 
The great element of reform is not born of hu- 
man wisdom ; it does not draw its life from human 
organizations. I find it only in Christianity. 
" Thy Kingdom come !" There is a sublime and 
pregnant burden in this prayer. It is the aspira- 
tion of every soul that goes forth in the spirit of 
reform. For what is the significance of this 
prayer ? It is a petition that all holy influences 
would penetrate and subdue and dwell in the 
heart of man, until he shall think, and speak, and 
do good from the very necessity of his being. So 
would the institutions of error and wrong crumble 
and pass away. So would sin die out from the 
earth. And the human soul, living in harmony 
with the Divine Will, this earth would become 
like heaven. This kingdom of God upon earth 
is no unsubstantiality — ^it covers no narrow field. 
It is the perfection and the meaning of that which 
we see, however dim and distant, in all true re- 
forms. When it comes, the rage of war shall 
cease, — the inequalities of rank shall vanish, the 
chains of the slave will be broken, and the feet of 



154 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

the oppressor will rest on the neck of his fellow 
no longer. And the din and the clamor that have 
rocked society for ages, and the woes that have 
heaved its heart so long, will be no more. Those 
will all pass away, and be still — like the night 
and the storm, when the summer-morning de- 
scends upon the mountains, the valleys, and the 
sea. 

It is too late for Keformers to sneer at Chris- 
tianity ; it is foolishness for them to reject it. In it 
are enshrined our faith in human progress — our 
confidence in reform. It is indissolubly con- 
nected with all that is hopeful, spiritual, capable 
in man. That men have misunderstood it and 
perverted it, is true. But it is also true that the 
noblest efforts for human melioration have come 
out of it — have been based upon it. Is it not so ? 
Come, ye remembered ones, who sleep the sleep 
of the just, who took your conduct from the line 
of Christian Philosophy — come from your tombs, 
and answer ! Come, Howard, from the gloom of 
the prison and the taint of the lazar-house, and 
show us what Philanthropy can do when imbued 
with the spirit of Jesus. Come, Eliott, from the 
thick forest where the red-man listens to the Word 
of Life — come, Penn, from thy sweet counsel and 
weaponless victory ; and show us what Christian 
Zeal apd Christian Love can accomplish with the 



TRUE MANLINESS. 155 

rudest barbarism and the fiercest hearts. Come, 
Raikes, from thy labors with the ignorant and the 
poor, and show us with what an eye this Faith 
regards the lowest and least of our race, and how 
diligently it labors, not for the body, not for the 
rank, but for the plastic soul that is to course the 
ages of immortality. And ye, who are a great 
number — ye nameless ones — who have done good 
in your narrower spheres, content to forego renown 
on earth ; and, seeking your reward in the Record 
on High, come and tell us how kindly a spirit, how 
lofty a purpose, or how strong a courage, the re- 
ligion ye professed can breathe into the poor, the 
humble, and the weak. 

Go forth, then, Spirit of Christianity, to thy 
great work of Reform ! The Past bears witness 
to thee in the blood of thy martyrs, and the ashes 
of thy saints and heroes. The Present is hojDeful 
because of thee. The Future shall acknowledge 
thy omnipotence ! 



VII. 

THE TRUE GROUND OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 

" Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To 
visit the fatherless and -widows in their affliction, and to keep 
himself unspotted from the ■world." 

James i. 27. 

OiiR time is distinguislied for its moral and 
benevolent associations. Some of tliese are distinct 
and sectarian. To them I have now no reference. 
Others are catholic and philanthropic in their 
character. These assume a peculiar interest. In 
this interest consists not alone the fact that thej 
are developments of the present age. Here we 
might ground some cheering hopes, and indulge in 
man J pleasing speculations. It is a great truth 
that burst] upon us in this nineteenth century, 
that the condition of humanity, taken in the mass, 
is more hopeful than ever it was before. The wave 
of human experience, that has rolled through so 
many night-like ages, bearing upon its bosom 
blood and weapons and chains, is fast gliding now 
in blessed light that bursts through the rifts of the 
breaking clouds, and issues far up in the serene 
heaven. 



158 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OK 

But, I say, these associations assume an interest 
to us, not only from the indications which they 
present of human development and human pro- 
gress, but because below them seems to lie this 
fact — that, in these associations christians find a 
common groun^ , and a common ground of wide 
extent too, to meet ujpon. Is it not an interesting 
question to ask — What will be the effect of the 
philanthropic movements of our day, in bringing 
together christian hearts, and in securing peace 
and union to the christian church ? 

Let us look a little at the interesting aspect 
which these associations present. The funda- 
mental principle upon which they rest is practi- 
cal BENEVOLENCE. ]^ow this is Something plain 
and tangible. The Presbyterian takes his bible, 
and cannot find therein the doctrine of universal 
salvation — he thinks he discovers, instead, the 
doctrine of endless misery, and may verily believe 
he does God service, by proclaiming his brother a 
grievous heretic, and excluding him from the 
communion table. But he goes out on anniversary 
day, to the Prison Discipline Society, or the Tem- 
perance Association, and lo ! there he meets the 
Universalist, and sits side by side with him, and 
unites with him in cordial, energetic action. The 
Unitarian cannot find the mystery of the Trinity 
in the record, nor can the Methodist, or the Bap- 



TRUE MANLINESS. 159 

tist, discover any thing less than the Supreme 
Godhead of Jesus ; but the anniversary comes 
round, and lo ! Unitarian and Methodist, and 
Baptist and Quaker, they are all ihere^ speaking, 
voting, working, like men and like brothers. Now 
here is something not altogether meaningless and 
uninteresting. It is plain that each of these men 
being a bible reader and a bible disciple, each has 
found something there that brings him to the 
anniversary, and that bring them together. What 
is it? Why the injunction of practical benevo- 
lence — the great law of love to man breathing all 
through the gospel, seen in every lineament of 
Jesus, and discovered in that precept which says 
— "Visit the fatherless and widows in their 
affliction," 

Here, then, I say, is a common ground of chris- 
tian union, and a ground of no mean extent. The 
field is as broad as the world — the ties of unity 
are as strong as the affections of the human heart. 
We cannot all believe the same thing — we cannot 
all worship in the same form ; but we know what 
charity is, and what human brotherhood is, and 
what, in its essence, Christianity is — and it is a 
great thing to hold so much in common, 

Now a union of christians on a common ground 
of faith never has taken place, and probably never 
will take place. It has been tried. It has made 



160 CinilSTIANITY THE PEEFECTION OF 

many hypocrites, and many formalists, and induced 
much ignorance and superstition. The Romish 
hierarchy tried this — the union of the church on 
the ground of a common faith. The Eeformation 
exploded that idea. It will never be attempted 
again. Of course, I do not mean here that there 
is no one article of belief, or that there are not 
articles in which all will agree. From the neces- 
sity of things christians must believe in God and 
in Christ. But when 1 allude to the ground of 
faith, I refer to the sectarian points. I do not 
think that men will ever come together upon one 
creed-platform, if that platform contains exclu- 
sively the views of any one sect, or the peculiar 
views of all the sects. I do not think that all men 
will ever be, speculatively, Presbyterians, or 
Methodists, or Baptists, or Unitarians, or Univer- 
salists. In heart, in action, they may be all that 
is good in all these systems. But they will never, 
probably, unite on one ground of faith. We 
shall never have a Catholic church so far as belief 
is concerned — a church whose creed shall be alike 
for the young and for the old, for the untutored 
and for the enlightened mind, for the mind of the 
nineteenth and the mind of the twenty-ninth cen- 
tury. Is it not time that we had given up this 
idea? 

But, Y )u may say — " if this is so, why preach 



TEUE MANLINESS. 161 

at all your peculiar views ?" For this reason, to 
be sure — that we believe those views to be true, 
and hope to make them widely prevalent. But 
this is a different thing from excluding all from 
the christian name who will not adopt our views 
— this is a different thing from making our views 
essential, absolutely essential to the christian char- 
acter. Now this has been the fault of the sects. 
They have made their peculiar views of christian 
doctrine essential to christian character — have 
denied men the christian name and christian com- 
munion, and called them heretics and infidels.^ 
because they did not adopt their views. And, I 
ask, is it not time that we gave up this practice of 
un-christianizing all men who cannot adopt our 
peculiar articles of faith ? Is it not time that we 
looked for some broader, deeper principle of 
union than any one set of tenets? The chain is 
too scanty, the links are too few — it cannot em- 
brace all the tongues and tribes and kindred of 
true Christendom. The bond must spring from 
the heart, not from the brain — must be a bond of 
practice, not of sectarian faith — must live in the 
affections, not the reason. 

I am not too sanguine. I know how bitter the 
opposition to all this is. I know what a firm seat- 
bigotry and ignorance yet have in the human 
soul. It is enough to make one cry out, not with 



162 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

indignation, but with pain; at the miserable nar- 
rowness of some of our christians. It Avas sc»me 
time since, that I looked over a religious paper, iu 
which was given an account of revivals, and once 
or twice it was mentioned that such a man was 
"a profane man, a Universalist" — "a drunken 
man, a Universalist ;" or something equivalent. 
Thus Universalism was classed with profaneness 
and drunkenness, as if these are its necessary 
adjuncts. Now this is very narrow. We will 
call it ignorance, but surely we ought not to boast 
much of our " age of light," if such ignorance is 
widely extended. It ought to be known, if it is 
not known, that there is no necessary connectiv»n 
between Universalism and drunkenness and pro- 
faneness. Why, a man may believe God is his 
father and benefactor — that he is bound to love 
him by the dearest and holiest ties ; I say, it is 
possible that a man should believe thus, and yet 
not profane God's name — why should he ? A man 
may believe that intemperance mars and crushes 
the phj'sical, intellectual, and moral man, bring- 
ing ruin, sorrow and death, and yet, although 
believing in the final salvation of all men, not be 
a drunkard — why should he? What necessary 
connection is there between the belief in the final 
salvation of all men and drunkenness? Oh ! it is 
petty, I had almost said it is vile — this low, narrow 



TRUE MANLINESS. 10-3 

estimate of religions opinions, and religious men. 
What if I should indite an article, and say — such 
a man is a deacon in the church, a sharper, and a 
Baptist — such a man is a selfish, hard-dealing man 
and a Presbyterian — -such a man is a licentious 
man and a Methodist ; classing these terms toge- 
ther as matters of course ? The whole community 
would feel outraged, and cry against it. But 
would it be any worse in this case, than it is in 
the other ? Have there been profane and drunken 
TJniversalists ? Yery likely. So also have there 
been cheating Baptists, and selfish Presbyterians, 
and licentious Methodists. But what of that? 
Am I prepared to say that they were sharpers, or 
misers, or rakes, just because they were Baptists, 
or Presbyterians, or Methodists ? No ! — far be it 
from me to detract from the good character that 
many, who live in consistency with their views, 
bear. 

Now I know that there is a great deal of just 
such narrowness as this which I have illustrated, 
existing in the Christian Church. I know that in 
some sections an almost impenetrable veil, thicker 
than the wall between Jew and Gentile, hangs 
dark and unpromising among the sects. But, 
although things work gradually, there is always 
reason to hope and to be strong when a good jprin- 
cvple once gets foot-hold in the world. A true 



164 CHRISTIA^riTY THE PERFECTION OF 

principle never dies. A grain of seed, sown in 
truth and holiness, will spring up to fruition — 
though it may be long, long ere it shall flower in 
its beauty, or spread its green leaves to the sun. 
Therefore I have hope for Christian union from 
the benevolent movements of the day. They 
bring men of very discordant theologies togethei", 
in very harmonious and very extensive action. 
And though they may not, by any means, develop 
all of Religion, they reveal, in glimpses, much of 
■what true Religion, true Christianity, is. And so 
we find that in true practical religion we can 
unite, though not in speciilative tenets. And this 
will help men to know each other better — to see 
more and more of one another — to find how much 
of good, deep, heart-r aWgion there is in all, and 
to find that it will mahe sweet music enough in 
heaven, up among the harps and the angels, 
though the tide of song to God and the Lamb 
comes mingling from the lips of Presbyterian and 
Methodist and Baptist and Universalist. And so, 
by-and-by, there will be less misrepresentation, 
less abuse, more respectful treatment towards one 
another ; and, gradually, men will find that in 
practical religion — in visiting the fatherless and 
widows in their affliction, and in keeping them- 
selves unspotted from the world — there is a bond 
of union deep as the sou wide as the race, beau- 



TRUE MANLINESS. 165 

tiful like Heaven, liolj like Christ. And one will 
saj to another — "Mj brother, I have sinned 
against thee, I thought in the little parchment 
creed that mj fathers gave me was the test of 
true religion — and I called thee hard names. 
But now, I have learned mj error. I see that 
Christianity is not a dogma but a life. Come, and 
here, where our Master's broken body and his 
shed blood are manifested by not inappropriate 
emblems of his rent and divided church, here we 
will commune together, as we hope to when we 
see him glorified, and behold in each other the 
same lovely image." 

My friends, I said I am not sanguine, and there- 
fore I only speculate upon what will be a very 
natural effect of the associated benevolent action 
of the day. In these organizations, as I have al- 
ready remarked, we get glimpses of much of what 
Christianity really is. Kow men, in all ages of 
the church, have been prone to seal up the re- 
ligion of the gospel in articles and forms. The 
controversy has all been about these. One of the 
first discussions in the christian church was about 
circumcision, about Jewish forms. But Christ did 
not come to announce to men that they must be 
circumcised, or abstain from such and such meats. 
He came to shed abroad in men's hearts the King- 
dom of Heaven, which " is not meat or drink, but 
8* 



1G8 CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFKCTION OF 

righteousness, and joy, and peace in the Holy 
Ghost." Men have sought to make Christianity 
depend upon the belief that a wafer was actually 
Christ's body — that the Pope was infallible. Men 
have sought to make Christianity hinge upon the 
point that Christ is very God and very man— 
that endless misery is the revealed will of God 
respecting a portion of the human race — that 
baptism is essential to salvation. And so they 
have sat down at separate tables, and have cast 
angry glances at each other, and thundered long 
and loud from the pulpits, and met each other 
coldly in the streets, and filled newspapers and 
pamphlets, yea, books and librai'ies, with contro- 
versial abuse. But is all this Christianity ? No 
more than the raiment is the body, or the meat 
the life. Christianity is a Life^ and every devout 
and loving heart has felt it, no matter what its 
name, or sect. Men have not evinced their Chris- 
tianity when sitting in a certain church, or 
worshipping in a certain form, or holding to 
articles of faith with the head merely. The old 
heathens could do all this; and what better, there- 
fore, are we than they ? What jpecidiarity was 
there in Christianity ; if this was all that it came 
to teach? But when men have gone out and 
visited the fatherless, when they have resisted the 
temptatioi.s and overcome the sins of the world, 



TRUE ^rAXLIXESS. 16 T 

then have tliej manifested Christianity — then 
have thev shown what it is. 

This being so, it will be seen at a glance, that 
all sects have, in fact, ackxiowledi^Qdi fundamental 
chnstianit_y. There has never been a sect that 
has denied the necessity and the beanty of a 
life of holiness and goodness. There has never 
been a sect that has not seen that Christ is the 
teacher of holiness and goodness. If, then, all 
sects practice that holiness and goodness, will 
they not meet on one common ground ? And, I 
ask, are not the movements of the present day 
fast tending to develop this fact that all sects be- 
lieve in what is truly vital and practical in Chris- 
tianity ? I think so. Here for the poor inebriate 
— ^here for the bond-slave — ^here for the cruelly- 
treated ci-iminal — ^here for the suffering poor ; 
we can act, and hope, and pray together. And 
do not think that there is no religion in this. It 
has been the fallacy of men, that they have too 
lightly prized this every-day, practical good- 
ness. But such was the way that Jesus lived — 
in every-day, practical goodness. Men have 
been prone to limit religion to the church, to 
the closet, to reading, meditation, and retire- 
ment — and to think too little of taking hold of 
the evils of humanity, of visiting the fatherless 
and widows in their affliction — of cherishins' a 



168 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

loving heart and manifesting a loving life. Bat 
the age is correcting this error. Tlie dark clouds 
of strife and smoke are breaking away. Far 
through the opening vista of rent devices and 
broken symbols, like the heaving billows of a 
mighty sea, the tide of Christian Philanthropy is 
rolling on. Men of all sects are there. The 
Catholic is there with his crucifix pressed to his 
bosom. The Methodist comes on, singing the 
sweet hymns of Wesley. The Baptist brings his 
robe of immersion. The Presbyterian stands 
upright, as his iron fathers did of old, to pray in 
simple reverence and freedom. The Universalist 
chants his anthem of restoration and holiness. 
But they stand shoulder to shoulder. They all 
point upward, earnestly upward, to that great 
banner which waves over all — whose device is 
the Crucified Jesus — whose inscription all over 
in letters of blessed light is his last command — 
" Love one another /" is the spirit of his pure 
and undefiled religion — " Visit the fatherless and 
widows in their affliction, keejp yourselves unspot- 
ted from the worldP 

Thus, I say, my friends, in the benevolent 
associations of the day, we discover a glowing 
hopefulness, and the kindlings of a grand and 
cheering truth. "We may see, that not only do 
tliey promise well for man — for the lowly, and 



TRUE MANLINESS, 169 

desolate, and down-trodden ; but they reveal the 
true ground of Christian Tlnion^ which is not a 
unity of faith, but a unity of heart and life — a 
practical unity. And, viewed in this light, are 
not the benevolent movements of the age indeed 
encouraging ? Do they not call for the blessings 
and prayers of all good men ? 

With two or three remarks, I will close this 
subject. And, 

First ; — I have not been recommending a mere 
outward, dry-husk morality. " Pure religion^'' 
the text says—" Pure religion^ and undefiled 
before God and the Father is this — To visit the 
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to 
keep himself unspotted from the world. " I know 
there is a form of morality, an outward, decent 
aspect of living, while to all devout feeling, and 
to all true, inward life, the heart is a stranger. 
But I understand this to describe an ardent love 
to man — a zealous philanthropic action for human 
relief and human improvement. And not only 
so. I understand it to demand a freedom from 
sinful desires and sinful conduct — a keeping un- 
spotted from the evil of the world. The whole 
requirement in the text, then, is nothing less 
than loving man with a heart sanctified by lovo 
to God — a soul growing and developing in right- 
eousness. So it is no dead, worldlv matter. It 



170 ClIKISIIAMTT TliK TKUFKCTION OF 

is spirit, and it is life. I know tliere is no gloomy 
mystery about it. It is a calm, consistent, benev- 
olent living. It ■will make a man feel that to 
be religions, he mnst carry his religion out — 
must apply it. These, it would seem, are too 
often sowing their religion only for another 
world, feeling that in this they have nothing 
particular to do. It is a mistake. We have 
souls here as much as we shall have hereafter. 
This is one sphere of the soul's action, the ves- 
tibule, it is true, of grander and higher i-ealities, 
but still, I sa}", one sphere of the soul's action 
— this every-day world. Go out, then — visit 
the fatherless and widows in their affliction — do 
good.) absolute, practical good, simple find ordi- 
nary as the work may seem ; and keep yourselves 
unspotted from the world. This is Practical 
Christianity — the Christianity M-liich all sects 
have acknowledged, and the gi-oimd whereon 
they will finally meet, if they meet at all — nay, 
the ground, whereon, even now, in some degree, 
they are coming together. 

Again ; — I have not spoken thus because I value 
lightly doctrinal views, or would sacrifice, or com- 
promise mine. K"o, I value them too highly. 
They make this great and shifting order of things 
too harmonious and cheerful, for me to give them 
up, and they seem too intimately connected with 



■JXtUE MANLIKESS. 171 

the welfare of man for me to keep them back. 
And, at the risk of being called dogmatic^ I must 
sav that I think these are the views that will tend 
to bring abont the wished-for state of things, that 
are calculated to make men value practical Chris- 
tianity, and feel the importance of true morality, 
and the significance of human brotherhood. These 
principles may not be acknowledged, they may 
not be understood, but, I think, like leaven they 
are to some extent working in the hearts of all 
christians. And under their influence christian 
sects may finally come together, not in speculative 
faiths, not by the sacrifice of opinion, but in hearty 
iiv love, in action — as all the disciples of Christ 
should. Peter may think circumcision necessary, 
and Paul count it of little worth ; and yet both 
may be good disciples of Jesus, and entitled to 
seats at the table of the common Master. Can 
we believe that the Church is always to be rent 
asunder, and agitated by internal conflicts ? After 
it has passed through this phase for a time, may 
it not come out, beautiful in the robe of Practical 
Eeligion, with the symbol of primeval brother- 
hood upon its bosom, with love in its eye, and 
peace on its brow ? Oh ! here, after all, may be 
the ground whereon God has ordained that chris- 
tian union shall take place — the ground of prac- 



172 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

unite here. Let ns hope and pray for this union. 
We may not see it. We may be called heretics 
all our days, and bear the brand of odium, and be 
denied the christian name. But hope still for 
that consummation. Hope still that the time 
shall come, when Christianity shall take the place 
of Sectarianism, and the Gospel as it was ushered 
in by angels, shall be responded to, by the hearts 
of its children — " Glory to God in the Highest : 
on earth, peace, good-will towards men !" 

And, finally, let us consider, my friends, the 
force which the text has upon us. It tells us what 
religion is. It is not a curious treatise, this text 
• — a fragment of abstract philosophy, it is of per- 
sonal and vital interest. It tells us to be pure and 
undefiled ; it tells you and vie to visit the father- 
less and widows in their affliction ; it tells you and 
me to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. 
Let us heed it. Let us act upon it ; and so come 
into the company of all the sainted and the just, 
who, with conflicting views of doctrine, have had 
but one great element of practice — indwelling 
religion. 



VIII. 

INTOLERANCE. 

— Ye knoAV no< what manner of spirit ye are of. — Luke, ix. 55. 

Among the many topics appropriate to our times, 
I select for tbe present occasion the subject of In- 
tolerance. It appears to me that this sentiment 
is somewhat rife among us, and it seems to be the 
sentiment rebulced in the text — " Ye know not 
what manner of spirit ye are of." You recollect 
the circumstances. Jesus was journeying towards 
Jerusalem. In the course of his travel he came 
to a village of the Samaritans. They did not 
receive him. They were hostile towards the Jews, 
and the spirit of Intolerance exhibited itself For, 
why would they not receive Christ ? For no other 
reason than simply because his face was set to go 
to Jerusalem, the city of those with whom they 
were at strife. Here, I say, was the spirit of In- 
tolerance. But it did not end here. The disci- 
ples, James and John, caught the flame, and they 
broke out — "Lord, wilt thou that we command 
fire to come down from heaven, and consume 



174: CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

them, as Elias did ?" But tliey addressed a Being 
now in whom such an earthly and nnholy passion 
could not dwell. "Ye know not what manner of 
spirit ye are of," said he; — "For the Son of Man 
is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save 
them." And calmly he went on to another village. 
But this rebuke was not alone for that group on 
the road to Jerusalem. Wlierever man is bitter 
and revengeful against his erring or dissenting 
brother, no matter how eminent his standing, how 
ardent his professions, how commendable his zeal, 
this^suggestion comes to him with all its force, — 
" Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." 
It is, doubtless, a rebuke that needs to be heeded 
in this age. We do not hang Quakers, we do not 
exile Baptists, we rear no inquisition, we sharpen 
no martyr-stakes — but these are only farms. The 
sj)irit of intolerance may live, though the power 
of advancing Freedom and Christianity may de- 
prive it of its faggot and its axe. The wrong 
sentiment, the deep, bad motive^ — these are what 
Christianity aims at. Away down into the caverns 
of the human heart, it looks with its piercing eye, 
and if a chafed and hostile feeling is there, it is 
enough for its rebuke and its discipline. The red 
lightning did not come down from heaven, accord- 
ing to the impulses of the disciples, and therefore 
no outward evil was accomplished. But the bad 



TRUK MANLINESS. 175 

sj)irit was alive — tlie bitter, revengeful motive ; 
and Christ saw it and reproved it. Now, then, 
because I see different sects allowed the rights of 
conscience, because churches of every name point 
their glittering sj^ires to heaven, because opinions 
are freel_y broached, and topics openly discussed, 
and loud professions of philanthropy and busy 
movings of zeal are all around me, I am not 
therefore convinced that there is no intolerance. 
I say, the form of intolerance may be different — ■ 
it may not be the Papal Interdict, the thumb- 
screw, or the rack, but it may lie in Jesuitical 
arts, in whispered calumnies, in slanderous words, 
in angry, violent philippics. In short, as it has 
come to be the peculiarity of the age not to war 
with weapons of steel, nor to attack with physical 
force, so much as to speak through arguments, 
pamphlets, books, and moral influences ; so as the 
sword and the torch were used by intolerance in 
that past age, when the sword and the torch were 
fashionable — this age may see intolerance clothed 
in the meek garments of modern christian pro- 
fessors, peeping out from " highly respectable and 
virtuous" circles, and speaking in the anger of the 
impatient conservative, or the zeal of the enthu- 
siastic reformer. Let me, then, speak of intoler- 
ance as something still existing, and therefore as 
something of which it is still appropi-iate to speak. 



176 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

I. Of Religious Intolerance. If this spirit of 
intolerance is unamiable any where, especially is 
it when found in connection with the name of 
Christ. And yet I know of no sphere where it 
seems rooted so deep, or where it kindles so high, 
as upon the subject of religion. This excommu- 
nication for a difference of opinion, this perfect 
hatred that seems, at least, to exist not only towards 
opinions, but men, this dividing of the Church of 
Jesus into hostile sects — is it like a manifestation 
of that Teacher, who came to gather men to a 
knowledge of one Father — to the fold of one 
Shepherd? And yet, where will you find more 
bitter warfare than that which is waged for reli- 
gious doctrines ? Where see more ridicule and 
aspersion than in the columns of the religious 
newspaper ? Where find more coldness or aliena- 
tion than among christians of different views i 
Now there must be some cause for this intole- 
rance. And it appears to me that it may arise in 
part, at least, from a misconception, and this mis- 
conception seems founded on the idea that a par- 
ticular belief is essential to christian character. 
Now I wish to be understood upon this point. 
All must agree tliat faith in Christ is absolutely 
necessary to entitle a man to the name of Christian. 
But within this avowal of christian faith how 
wide may be the diversity of knowledge, of 



TKUE MANLINESS. 177 

reasoning power, of disposition ! These may all 
lead to different views of the Saviour's doctrines, 
and to different perceptions as to what are and 
what are not his teachings. And yet I affirm 
that no one can truly see Christ, and drink in the 
influence of his character, and not be a christian 
at heart. And there is no one sect in the ample 
field of Christendom, that has not christian truth 
enough to kindle christian life in its members. 
Let me say again by way of explanation, that I do 
not wish men to be indifferent to doctrines, or to 
sectarian views. In the glow of generous and 
truly christian feeling, men will often say — 
" Well, it makes no difference about doctrines, 
provided the heart is right." It does make a 
difference — and the difference is just as wide as 
the gap between truth and error. It makes this 
difference— that the soul that imbibes an erro- 
neous instead of a true doctrine, is less happy, 
and less advanced in its true life, than it might 
be. Still, there is truth at the bottom of the 
expression — " It makes no difference what a man 
believes ;" and it lies at the point at which I 
am now arriving. The meaning of it is this — 
that the truth is worth but little unless it produces 
its fruits, and, if it produce its fruits, this is the 
chief end ; and there is a conviction in saying 

this, that in aP sects there is truth enough to 

8* 



178 CHRISTIANITY THE PRKFIXTION OF 

produce good fruits. And I say so too. In 
every christian denomination, there is enough of 
vital, kindling Christianity to make good hearts. 
No one can sit at the foot of the cross, as a 
devoted, earnest disciple, and not feel the light 
that rays out from it moving upon his soul. No 
one can take the simple christian law of love 
to God, and love to man, and go by its guidance, 
and yet be an immoral man. No one can stand 
by that cleft rock, and that irradiated tomb, and 
not believe that religion appeals to something 
deeper than time and sense, to which we must 
awake, and for which we must strive. These 
are indisputable facts, first principles, that are 
tacitly admitted by all who assnme the christian 
name. But, I say, this matter is not virtually 
thus regarded by many sects. A man's varia- 
tion in christian belief, is looked upon as a token 
of depreciated moral and religious character. 
The unworthiness of such a disciple to a^jproach 
the commnnion table is asserted upon no other 
ground, and his probable moral conduct is traced 
to and linked with his faith — and his faith, 
often, not as it really is, but as men see it with 
their eyes, colored as they may be by ignorance 
and prejudice. This,- then, I repeat, would seem 
to be one cause of the spirit of intolerance that 
prevails among various christian denominations. 



TRUK MANLINESS. 179 

Again ; — we may trace this intolerant spirit 
back to the idea, that a man is actually to blame 
for being in error — that if he is in error he 
knows it all the while, and only persists in it 
from a perverse and wicked disposition. Hence, 
men are denounced for teaching such and such 
doctrines, a^'e scolded at and sneered at — but not 
reasoned with, or pitied. If the gross assump- 
tion that I am right and you are wrong be ad- 
mitted, without entering into the merits of the 
case, still, I know not why I should abuse, or 
denounce yon. Surely, you may think you are 
right, and if it be a delusion to think so, still, it 
demands a labor of love, an effort of reason — not 
a display of intolerance. But how men will knit 
their brows, and vent their bitterness at the name 
of a heretic ! A heretic ! Why, one would 
think, from the common sentiment, that a heretic 
v/as one who had not only unchristianized but un- 
manned himself— one going forth on purpose to 
destroy and pollute, laying sacrilegious hands on 
the holiest things from a spirit of sheer malignity 
and wickedness, and opposing himself to the re- 
ceived faith from a scornful and sinful spirit. 
But now it is possible that a heretic may be a 
very different person from all this. He may be 
a meek seeker for truth, blinded, perhaps, but 
sincere ; he mav be a man who has studied and 



ISO ClIKISTIAXITY THE I'EKFECTIOX OF 

thought, and who in conscience can not adopt the 
received ideas ; he may be a man who nourishes 
all the religious affections, who drinks religion 
with a keener thirst, and from purer springs — or 
thinks he does — because he has thrown by what 
seemed to him impediments in the way to the 
fountain-head — impediments to him, although to 
you they may be sacred articles of faith. A 
heretic may be such a man as this, and surely he 
is not to be denounced and abused for all these 
peculiarities. And look ye, who, burning with 
intolerance, would almost call down fire from 
heaven upon him, he may be, after all, farther 
advanced in Divine truth and Divine life than 
you, with all your faith, ancient and wide-spread 
as it is. Such a thing, I say, is possible. 

But while intolerance like this would seem to 
fasten more particularly upon the orthodox than 
upon the heretic sects — upon the Conservative 
rather than the Reforming Religionist, it may be 
found with the latter, as well as with the former 
— and I think it will be found there in our day. 
The Samaritans in refusing to receive Jesus, ex- 
hibited intolerance, but the disciples, in their 
turn, manifested the very sentiment that excited 
them. How common this is ! The spirit we de- 
nounce, we oppose in the very same spirit. The 
boasting J>iberal approaches the village of the 



TRUE MANLINESS. 181 

Orthodox Samaritan, but be will bave none of 
bim, because bis face is set in a suspicious direc- 
tion. " What an intolerant bigot," exclaims the 
liberal, " Oh ! that I could call down fire from 
heaven." Nay, but tell me, my friend, is there 
not more than 07ie of you who is intolerant now ? 
I deprecate persecution for heresy, then — but I 
equally deprecate the spirit in which the heretic 
deals ou^t his accusations of " superstitious," 
" bigoted," " timid," and " time-serving." I want 
no man abused because he rejects the miracles, 
but I do not want him to abuse me because I hold 
to them. I affirm that it is unjust for the ortho- 
dox professor to un-christianize the Universalist, 
but I maintain that it is just as wrong for the 
Univ^ersalist to call the orthodox a hypocrite, or 
a dupe. And, I say, such a spirit as is manifested 
in the last-named illustration, is too rife in our 
day. 

Such, then, is Religious Intolerance. I would 
that it was done away with. This is the union of 
christians that I ask for. Not an identity of 
doctrine, not an indifference to articles of belief, 
not a worshipping in one place or one form — -but 
a recognition of the great common humanity, 
of the right of opinion, of the oneness of the 
Ohrist-like Image seen through many human 
forms, Alas ! we shall never have this sentiment, 



1S2 CIIKISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

as tlie tide of thought and feeling runs at present. 
"We shall never have this sentiment, until \vq rise 
to more intimate communion M'ith that One who 
could bless even while men cui'sed, could heal 
while they smote, could pray for them when they 
pierced ; and even when turned from their homes 
and denied their hospitality, could say to those 
who breathed the bitterness of vengeance in his 
behalf — " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye 
are of — the Son of Man is not come to destroy 
men's lives, but to save them." 

II. Again ; — I would allude to the spirit of In- 
tolerance, as connected with our Philanthropic 
and Moral Reforms. Men may proclaim their 
love for their fellows, may be zealous in forming 
associations, may boast how consistently they 
stand upon the great christian platform ; bnt I 
would say to them — it is not only the w^ork thou 
doest, but the spirit in which thou workest, that 
will determine upon what platform you stand. 
The Christian Idea has been in the world a long 
time, but alas ! too little has the Christian Idea 
been suffered to accomplish. " A grain of wheat," 
said the Saviour, " must first fall into the ground 
and die," — beautifully alluding to himself, but 
also giving an emblem of the fate of his doctrine. 
That too has been buried — buried not so much 
beneath persecutions, as beneatli corruptions. 



TRUE MANLINESS. 183 

Free and glorious from the martyr's ashes and 
the martyr's blood, sprung the green harvest of 
the church ; but when, instead of the Martyr we 
had the Priest, instead of the sandalled Apostle 
the mitred Ilierarch, then the Church became 
worldly, and the germ of truth had to lie beneath 
the feet of tlie luxurious and the bigoted, until 
its fruit sprung forth again in some lowly and 
despised Reformer, that must also die ere he 
could give it life and diffusion. This has been 
the fate of the Christian Idea. It has not been 
carried out in the Christian spirit, and it could 
not develop without that. Men have met Pagan 
Relics with Christian Relics, heretic armies with 
Christian armies, ejection from Samaritan villages 
with Christian invocations of fire from heaven. 
" Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of " 
— may not this be said to some even at this day, 
wdiose idea may be true, whose premises may 
be right, but whose instruments are carnal and 
deadly ? 

Take the Temperance Reform. Is an intolerant 
spirit right in this cause ? You say yon man is a 
debased and polluted drunkard — you deem that 
rigid measures are the best for him. Nay, but, 
my friend, what induced you in the first place to 
plead for temperance ? A love of your race, you 
sav, — vonr heart bled to see tlie miseries wrought 



184 CIIKISTIANITY THE I'ERFECTION OF 

by intoxication. But is this the end of your ten- 
derness ? Have you no mantle of charity to cast 
over those tottering, blighted limbs? Have you 
nothing of the spirit of Him who could seek the 
healing of the moral leper covered all over with 
sin ? Have you nothing of the love that can find 
something of the common man in that ruined clay, 
some fire that was kindled at a mother's breast in 
that hard heart, some chord almost but not quite 
dead ? Ay, you can find this in the drunkard^ 
but you can have no patience with him who deals 
out the liquid fire, and puts it to his parched lips. 
Nay, even here, I plead for tolerance — tolerance 
with the man, I speak not of his husiness. Let 
public opinion and restrictive law take care of 
that. But he, too, is a man, and, believe me, 
reason, the power of conscience, the law of love 
and right, may touch even him. Perhaps he 
sees not even yet the force of thy argument 
Perhaps the words that shall pierce his heart 
are already winging their way. But at all events, 
be not intolerant. Trust reason, love, Christianity 
— these are the mighty agents of reform. 

I pass into the Anti-Slavery meeting. Here, I 
discover, is agitated a great truth — the natural 
equality of all men — the right of the poorest and 
lowest to be free, to breathe God's air upon what 



TRUE MANLINESS. 185 

hill-top lie will, to follow His sunshine around the 
earth if he list— the wrong of holding him in 
bondage, of putting him by force to do another's 
work. But the idea and the spirit, at times, seem 
widely separated. The quondam philanthropist 
now seems to struggle for words to express his 
sense, not merely of the traffic, but of the men 
who acknowledge it. They are hounds and mur- 
derers, he says — hard-hearted and brutally wicked. 
I would say to him — Friend, this is not the legiti- 
mate spirit of thy reform. Have some pity even 
for the slave-holder. Do not ever paint him as 
such a grim, ferocious monster. He, too, is a man. 
He may not have reasoned as far as thou. Many 
things may stand between him and the light. Be 
not so violent and sweeping in thy charges. His 
position may be the result of wrong reasoning, not 
of moral obliquity. I have sat at the table of the 
slave-holder, I found him open and generous. I 
have slept beneath his roof, with no fears of mur- 
der by him. I have been in the bosom of his 
family — I found there tender and beautiful affec- 
tions, the sunshine of love, and the sentinients of 
chastity and reverence. I have opened the records 
of our country's fame, and his name was upon 
them. There are places of red battle for human 
rights, — his blood stained them. Thou mistakest 
thy work when thou callest him dog, murderer, 



186 OHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

monster. Conscience compels thee to speak the 
truth, thou sayest — ay, but conscience does not 
compel thee to speak vindictively, and without 
discrimination. Thy true work is to love, to 
reason, to strive with moral suasion — not to spit 
out words of philanthropy in droj^s of fii'e — not 
to cry, " Human Brotherhood ! and cursed he all 
who do not say so with me," 

Thus, then, in our philanthropic reforms, let 
there be no intolerance. To those who cherish it, 
Chuistianity says — "Ye know not what manner of 
spirit ye are of." 

There is, however, another class who cannot 
brook the mention of reform, or reformers. To 
them such things are disagreeable. They feel 
pretty much as the sluggard does, when one some- 
what radely, with determined hands, says to him 
■ — "sleep no more, it is time to rise." They think 
that the world is \vell enough as it is, and that no 
good can come of striving to alter present circum- 
stances. This they say, because they are quite 
comfortable, and that, to them^ is enough. But 
they must remember that there are many others 
in the world — they have innumerable brethren. 
These cry out against cold and hunger and moral 
deprivation, and there must be reform. Those to 
whom reform is an alarming cry, are ready to 
exclaim against every reformer, as a low annihi- 



TRUE MANLINESS. 187 

lator, a Louse-breaker, or a highway-robber — 
somebody who is bent upon disturbing order and 
introducing anarchy, upon uprooting society and 
giving reins to licentiousness — in short, as a very 
suspicious and fearful character. This, too, is 
intolerance. Listen to all the reformer has to 
say. Seek not to prevent discussion, or to shut 
out petition. Accept M'hat is reasonable, reject 
what is false, and fear not that truth shall ever be 
destroyed. But, to denounce without hearing, to 
abuse because he touches some selfish chord, to 
call him fanatic and licentious, this is intolerance 
— if ye do so " Ye know not vrhat spirit ye are 
of." 

III. I would allude to one more manifestation 
of the spirit of intolerance, I mean the manner 
in which we too often treat criminals and wrong- 
doers. The crime ^ I maintain, is to be abhorred 
aTid destroyed. But not so the criminal. He is 
a man— he has a soul- — -the sympathies of our 
nature are not dead in hira. I know, sometimes, 
it would almost seem so. It Avould seem as if 
every spark of generous or virtuous fire that once 
may have burned in that heart, must long since 
have smouldered into obscene ashes. That gore- 
stained hand, that scarred brow, that lip all con- 
vulsed with derisive laughter, or twitching with 
hate and fierv scorn — " Oh ! here is one to be 



188 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFKCTION OF 

crushed," you say, "loathed, blotted from exist- 
ence, with all the terrors of the law, strong and 
bloody, heaped upon him." Not so — I aflirm 
again, not so. Take that criminal, shut him up 
that he harm not his fellows, and then labor with 
him for a nobler end than destruction — reforma- 
tion. It is man-like to crush and destroy — it is 
Christ-like to purify and build up. There is some 
hope for the most depraved. And if we were not 
so intolerant, thought more of the criminal as a 
man, thought more of reformation than revenge, 
we should smite upon that iron-heart with words 
of love, patiently, unweariedly, until we should 
find some pulse of good throbbing yet, perhaps, 
with the mystic beatings which it learned in some 
departed mother's arms. Holy memories of child- 
hood shall rush upon that long-shrouded soul — 
voices of early innocence shall ring like Sabbath 
church-bells long forgotten, calling him back to 
innocence and to peace. Such things have been. 
Can they not be again ? At all events, I say, be 
not so intolerant towards the criminal. Separate 
him more, in your mind, from his crime. Think 
of the associations which may have surrounded 
him from his younger days. Think of the want 
in which he was born, the vice into which he was 
baptized. Oh ! it is the true Christian work to 
reform. Christ died for all — for the very mur- 



TRUE MAKLES'ESS. 189 

derer at his cross. Who says any man is hopeless, 
utterly degraded, fit only to be destroyed ? He 
falters from the confidence of Christ. His revenge 
gets the better of his reason. He knows not what 
spirit he is of. 

Let us not be intolerant, then, even to the 
criminal. Let us secure ourselves and him from 
any more harm. Let ns inflict a righteous retri- 
bution. But let us look upon the matter from a 
Christian point of view. 

But, thus far, we have spoken of C7'iminals — 
men amenable to the severest retributions of the 
law — men whose deeds are of the blackest dye. 
I pass from these to speak of the conduct of 
society too often exhibited towards those who step 
aside from the path of virtue, under various cir- 
cumstances. Let the offender be one who has 
been lured to ruin by villainous art and sinful 
fascination. How soon 

" The sharp scorn of meu 
On her once bright and stately head is cast !" 

How quick the expanded brow gathers into a 
frown ! How soon the gentle mood of friendship 
is changed to unmingled loathing and contempt ! 
Is all this right? Shall we never listen to the 
pleadings of charity ? Who can read that heart ? 
Who can trace its weary, fearful struggles ? Who 
knows the depth of the sharp agony that is prey- 



190 CIIKI5TIA.Nri"Y Till-: PKUFKCTIOX OF 

ing upon it now? Eejected, scorned, driven i'roni 
the light of home — paternal lips open to discard — • 
maternal hands raised to curse — ^liope withered in its 
spring-time — affection repelled and driven freezing 
to its fountain — the sanctity of woman's sisterhood 
averted — the sneer of men quivering like sharp 
lightning on his face. Oh ! is there no room for 
mercy here — no hand of pity stretched out to 
restore — no Christian love that will yet seek to 
save ? 

Again : some hitherto respected member of 
society commits a wrong. How prone are we to 
jump at conclusions I How eager to denounce ! 
There may be some palliation. At least, there is 
but the frailty of our common manhood. You 
and I had originally no patent of virtue in distinc- 
tion from the man who to-day has fallen. Go 
back to his earliest temptation. See the first 
moment when it fastens upon him. See the first 
moment when that seemingly impregnable honor 
yields to the subtle assault or the vigorous attack. 
Mark that rich treasure, self-respect^ as it dies out 
from the soul, long before the keen eyes of the 
uncharitable world detect a flaw. See the reso- 
lution and the struggle, the momentary victory 
and the relapse — the victim of sin, now nerved by 
old feelings of virtue, struggling " like a strong 
swimmer with his ag^onv " and his shame — now 



TEUE MANLINliSS. 191 

listless and hopeless, like one who has gone too far 
to repent. And when the overt act is committed, 
and the staring world sees all, it overlooks the 
struggle, overlooks the temptation, its forgets the 
connnon frailty — it sees only the vice • and, with 
an indignant feeling, as thongh its immaculate 
virtue were insulted, it cries out, '•'■ Hunt Mm and 
hang Mm /" I say this is intolerance. I mean 
this disposition to show judgment without mercy, 
this relish for detecting faults, this lack of pity, 
this blind fury of revenge that as often does v/rong 
as does the weak mercy that forgoes all. "When 
we thus feel, truly is it, that we know not what 
spirit we are of. 

I shall say nothing further at present upon this 
subject of intolerance. I have spoken only for 
christian love, only for justice. I have not been 
pleading for error, for wrong-doing, for crime — 
but only that we should regard the common man- 
hood that lies behind all error, and wrong-doing, 
and crime. Upon this manhood let us ever look, 
as upon something which contains a common 
element with ourselves, something to love, to labor, 
and to pray for. How shall we do this ? My 
friends, we must sit at the feet of Christ, and 
drink in his great law of love. We cannot draw 
this love from organizations, we cannot create it 
by. .a5sociations---we must derive it from Christ, 



192 CHRISTIANITY THE ri:KFKCTION OF 

and then cany it into our associations. Men do 
not go to Christ for it, they go into associations 
without it, and hence the intolerance that abounds 
in the most professedly philanthropic movements. 
Christianity is against intolerance. She goes 
forth to conquest, yea to certain conquest, though 
the consummation may seem long delayed. But 
in going forth she rejects the torch and the axe, 
relying upon the omnipotence of truth and love. 
She has a battle to fight, a revolution to accom- 
plish—but in fighting that battle she uses no 
carnal weapons, she invokes not the aid of war, 
cruel and vengeful war, that tramples its purple 
wine-press whose red clusters are human hearts. 
She trusts the intrinsic goodness of her cause, and 
the all-subduing power of her influence. And 
when that revolution is accomplished, the first 
will be last and the last first. She will pass by 
the sepulchres of conquerors and kings, to rebuild 
and re-garnish the tombs of the prophets — she 
will pass by the bigot in mitre and in lawn, and 
elevate the poor widow who has labored content- 
edly in her sphere, cherishing the flowers of holi- 
ness in her bosom. And she will abolish this war 
of creeds, and she will still this angry controversv. 
And she will gather the children of men into one 
great temple, whose worship shall be holiness, 
whose creed shall be love, whose dome shall open 



TEUE MANLINESS. 193 

up into the illimitable universe of God. But ere 
this great work shall be accomplished, as one of 
the first conditions of its accomplishment, intoler 
ance, deep-rooted, bitter intolerance must be 
eradicated from the hearts of men. Hearer, it 
must be eradicated from your heart and mine ere 
we are christians indeed, ere we are fitted for the 
elements and the associations of heaven. 



IX. 

THE WORK OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE HUMAN 
SOUL. 

" Think not that I am eome to destroy the law or the prophets ; I 
am not eome to destroy, but to fulfil" 

Matthew v. 11. 

Thus sublimely did Jesus proclaim his own 
mission. " / am not come to destroy, hut to 
FULFIL." I do not pretend that in interpreting 
these words as I do, I present their whole applica- 
tion, but their scope includes the special point 
upon which I propose to dwell, and it is this. 
Christ came to raise men above the necessity of 
outward laws and arbitrary institutions, and make 
them a law to themselves, living from a spiritual 
perception and a divine life in their own souls, 
and so in accordance with the law of God, which 
law is, in other words, the only mode of the soul's 
perfection — its holiness and welfare. This is not 
proclaiming that all outward laws are wrong, that 
all arbitrary institutions are falsehoods. They 
have had a good mission to perform. They have 
been restrictive and suggestive. The law that 
tells me I shall not steal, and if I do steal, my 



196 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

right hand shall be cut off, may be a good law in 
its season. There is a time when man's intellect 
is limited, when his moral sentiments are undevel- 
oped, and in order to prevent him from doing 
wrong, the first lesson that he can learn is, that he 
will receive injury if he does steal. Now to pause 
with this, and to look upon it from the christian 
point of view, makes the law often very meagre 
and very ignoble. All that it has done thus far is 
to excite a selfish fear. The man will not steal, 
because, if he does steal, he will receive hurt. 
Why it is wrong to steal, he does not know, and 
the disposition to steal is in his heart. But there 
stands the law and the penalty. " Thou shalt not 
steal" — " if thou dost steal thou losest thy right 
hand." And he pauses and desists from his pur- 
pose. But now he may be led to take another 
step, and ask — " Why should I not steal ? Why do 
this law and this penalty exist ? I know they do 
exist, but the mere fact of their existence is not 
satisfactory. I see things existing in the material 
world, but there is a reason for their existence." 
This will naturally lead him to inquire into the 
nature and the reason of right and wrong, and 
then he may desist from stealing, from other mo- 
tives than the mere fear of losing his right hand. 
So you see this law, and laws of a like character, 
may be good in their places — they restrain men 



TRUE MAXLIXE5S. 197 

from doing wrong — they are suggestive of moral 
distinctions. So with many institutions. Take, 
for instance, the Mosaic Kitual. Its ceremonies 
were suggestive, were premonitory. They led the 
dark idolater, and the passion-blinded Jew, up to 
a perception of the oneness of the Deity, and by 
material symbols prepared them for spiritual 
realities. To have introduced them, at once, into 
the broad dispensation of Christianity, would have 
been a violent transition, unlike any other j)rocess 
of the Creator, who in His universe brings forth 
first the blade, then the ear, after that the full 
corn in the ear. Shall we say, then, that the con- 
necting linTcs, the preparatory steps, were unneces- 
sary and false? Every law that restrains men 
from wrong, or suggests the right ; every institu- 
tion that opens up a clearer perception of the 
reality of things, is good in its place. Christ's 
dispensation does not contradict them, does not 
repudiate them, but it supersedes them — rather, it 
absorbs them — as the ocean absorbs the countless 
water-drops, the rivulets and streams that have 
flowed through many sections — absorbs them all 
in its boundless bosom, and, accomplishing what 
these lesser streams in their several localities could 
not do, rocks navies, transports rich merchandise, 
and heaves its blessings upon a thousand shores. 
These laws and these institutions are false, and 



198 CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

false only, when men undertake to ])erpetuate 
tliem — to bind them around the so\il when it has 
out-grown them — to invest them with an abiding 
sanctity when the occasion for them has passed 
away. Each atom of good in them shall live for 
ever, but it has passed into a higher organization. 
Seek not now the law of the acorn, it has become 
absorbed in the law of the oak — anon, the law of 
the oak has become the law of wind and vapor, of 
soil and sunshine, and these are embraced in some 
more comprehensive principle. So goes on the 
process in the natural w^orld. We progress from 
lesser laws that are good in their departments 
up to some greater law that comprehends these. 
Light is one law and heat is another. The philo- 
sopher looks to see if both are not effects of a 
single cause — electricity, perhaps, and electricity 
may be the effect of magnetism, or vice-versa; 
and, by-and-by, men may come to see that all the 
multiform changes of nature hang upon one single 
cause — which cause is itself, what? The first 
manifestation of that intelligence who speaks and 
it is done, who commands and it stands fast. But 
if men ever arrive at such an elevation as to dis- 
cover the great agent that is the controlling law 
of the material universe, shall they say that it 
destroys these lesser laws of magnetism, electricity, 
light, heat? Will it make them false? No— it 



TBUE MANLINESS. 199 

will confirm them — it will show their highest rela- 
tions — it will not destroy, it will fulfil them. Do 
you not now understand how it was, that although 
Christ came to break symbols and to abolish rites, 
and to introduce a new dispensation, he came not 
to destroy, but to fulfil ? 

And do you not now see also the point upon 
which I am ^^boring — the work of Christianity 
in the human soul? — ^That it aims to raise man 
above his dependence upon human laws and 
outward institutions, to intimate relationship with 
God, and to direct action from His own Spirit, 
if I may say so, indwelling in the soul ? Human 
Laws and outward Institutions, I have said, are 
restrictive and suggestive — but they are not 
creative. They may prevent from doing wrong, 
they may suggest the right— but they cannot 
create the good disposition from which all con- 
sistent virtue emanates, and without which M^e 
shall ever be inclined to do wrong, and have but 
fitful glimpses of the right. The existence of 
laws is an evidence of human imperfection. If 
every man was " a law to himself," after the 
fashion of Christianity, there would be no need 
for legislators and enactments. If men had no 
disposition to murder, there would be no need for 
a law concerning murder. Laws are made as 
crimes and wrongs appear. The promulgation 



200 CHRISTIANITY THE PEKFECTIOX OF 

of a new edict is the token of a new manifesta- 
tion of evil. The nation that has occasion for 
the least laws is the most advanced in true civili- 
zation. A land that should require no prisons 
and no magistrates, would be the happiest land 
on the face of the earth, because we should find 
there a community whose members do right for 
righteousness' sake — whose acts not alone,^ but 
whose disjposition is to do good. The reason why 
we should tremble at the removal of all penalties, 
and the abolition of all laws, would be because 
we know men have M'rong dispositions, and these 
would change the license to anarchy instead of 
freedom. Human laws, then, plainly mark the 
existence of evil inclinations on the part of men, 
and the danger that is apprehended from these. 
These laws, at least directly, make no man any 
better. They are the rocky headlands, and the 
careful breastworks, that shield from the fury 
of the impetuous waves — not the eternal lights 
that stream long and far over the troubled waters, 
to guide the wanderer and confirm tlie doubting. 
They appeal almost wholly to selfish principles. 
The good citizen is anxious for the preservation 
of the laws, because without them his life and 
his property are insecure — many a bad man may 
keep the laws, but it is because if he break them 
he will suffer. So, I say, these laws are good in 



I 



TRUE MANLINESS. 201 

their season. For one I am far from recom- 
mending their abolition. However highl}^ I may 
estimate human nature, I am not romantic, and 
whatever schemes I may indulge for human im- 
provement, I would not be Utopian. There 
must be a great work accomplished in the souls 
of men before we abolish all laws, but that is a 
work that the laws can never perform. Until 
the flame of evil desire is quenched in the human 
heart ; until the taint of sin, ages old, running 
deep and vital through the springs of action 
is removed, like the leper-spot, by the power of 
Christ, there will be crimes to punish, and 
wrongs to legislate for, the wide world over — in 
every stage of civilization, and under every form 
of government. The attempt to do away with 
blood}^ penalties and harsh laws is only made by 
a community in which is the consciousness that 
men have outgrown them — that they do more 
evil than good, by encouraging the very spirit 
that they should repress, and that laws which 
maintain more intimate relations to the springs 
of crime and afford more pungent motives, are to 
be preferred to those the only characteristics of 
which is their severity. One of the ideas of our 
age is that of moral suasion, and in its place it is 
a noble idea. But it may also be erroneously 
estimated. It would not do to strip away all 



202 CHRISTIAJflTY THE PERFECTION OF 

penalties, without any regard to the dispositions 
of men. There must be an appeal made to 
man's intellect and his heart, and when these can 
be influenced, then a reform will be accomplished 
and a check will be given to sin, better than all 
enactments or rigors can secure. This I under- 
stand to be the true aim of moral suasion — to 
influence the intellect and the heart — to appeal 
to motives ; which it is deemed is a far more effi- 
cient preventive of crime than the mere blow 
which is returned for a blow. But with what 
agencies shall moral suasion work upon the heart ? 
I answer, with the precepts and influences of 
Christianity. 

Thus, then, we are brought to this funda- 
mental truth, that in order to prevent crime and 
evil action, we must alter the dispositions of 
men ; that human laws and penalties cannot 
reach these; that the best efforts for reform 
aim at these, and that moral suasion is efficacious 
only as it controls the intellect and the heart. 
Everywhere we turn for a higher principle than 
we find in human institutions — we seek an ele- 
ment that shall penetrate the heai% that shall 
control and guide the disposition. This is the 
great want of society in its aspects of crime and 
shame and wrong. You may utter your pen- 
alties from the tribunals of the magistrate in 



TRUE MANLINESS. 203 

tones of thunder, you may soak scaffolds with 
human blood, you may rear walls of impregnable 
granite that shall frown in the very midst of 
busy life, you may plead for Peace, and Tem- 
perance, and Chastity — but imtil man's affec- 
tions are altered, until his soul yields to that 
gushing influence that is the spirit of the pre- 
cept " Love God and man," War will stalk 
abroad with its havoc, red-handed Murder will 
seek its victims at noon-day, Inebriety will stag- 
ger through .the crowded streets, and impudent 
Sin will open its doors in the very face of virtue. 
Yon boast of your Reforms — but sound not 
your trumpet of victory too soon. There is a 
mightier work to be accomplished than that 
which binds men together in associations, or 
makes them enthusiastic in great causes and 
pledges them to its support. Associations per- 
form a good ofHce. They awaken men from 
selfishness, draw them together by revealing the 
common bond of humanity, and in their great 
agitation of sympathies reveal the practical phases 
of the doctrine of human brotherhood. But they 
do not occupy the highest point in true civiliza- 
tion. They are but the medium ground that 
leads to better things. They aim — every associa- 
tion that has a true idea aims — to produce a 
free and a safe individualism; to make each 



20i CnRISTIANITY THE PEKFECTIOX OF 

member of the human family feel that he is a 
Tnan, and to know what depends upon that fact, 
the responsibility that hangs upon it, the dignity 
that belongs to it, the great law above all laws, 
the law of our spiritual being, that is to be obeyed. 
You should wish to make the drunkard a sober 
man, not because his neighbor is sober, not be- 
cause it is j)opular to be sober, but because it is 
right — because that law of right is binding upon 
him, individually — because he is bound to be 
sober, if all men beside were reeling with their 
wine-cups to destruction. So with all reforms. 
Their true end is accomplished only when they 
make each man feel his individual responsibility 
— feel that for and from himself alone he is to 
stand or fall — feel that there is a great law 
which he, he is always and everywhere bound 
to obey, let the world move as it will, because 
he is a man. This, I say, is the true end of 
reforms ; and it is to be feared that in the pro- 
minence which we give to the principle of Asso- 
ciation, we lose sight of it, or under-estimate it. 
I say, then, we must not rest upon our armor, 
furl our standards, and sound our clarion of tri- 
umph, until men are not only reformed outwardly, 
but imcardly — not as masses, but as individuals. 
And, therefore, there is yet a great work to do. 
Oh ! strip off the veil that the sunny light of day 



TKUE MANLINESS. - '205 

and the decencies of society cast upon human 
life. Look in upon its million beating hearts. 
Eead the corrupt desire that lurks below the 
smooth address. See the smouldering flame of 
passion whose outward manifestation is covered 
by a smile. Go behind the masked faces that 
crowd the public streets, and see the hideous 
thoughts that creep and nestle there all un- 
checked. See the ferocious hate, the salacious 
wish, the selfish narrowness, the unyielding 
pride, that flit like dark spectres across, or fan 
with untiring wings their embers in the soul. 
Here, oh ! Legislator, are the sources of crime — 
can thy nicely-adjusted law that decrees so much 
penalty for so much overt action, reach these, the 
main-springs of it all ? Here, oh ! Reformer, is 
the life of the evils at which thou art aiming. 
This painted mask of Folly, this ancient custom of 
Sin, this shameless harlotry of Yice, thou mayest 
repress to-day ; but to-morrow they will be all 
abroad again, in some new shape, under some 
trickery of human wit, some garment of moral 
sanctity perhaps — but they will be all abroad, 
because the heart will throw out its tenants. 
Could you drain the sea ? From its thousand 
brine-springs, from its arteries that reach to the 
heart of great mountains, from its gurgling caves 
that pierce to the centre of .the earth, a new ocean 



206 



CHRISTIANITY TIIF. PEKFECTU^N OF 



would ever rush unconquered and inexhausti- 
ble. 

But if sin thus lurks everywhere around us, 
what shall we say of that dark mass, that in dens 
and cellars, in peopled cities, lies matted together, 
stee^jed in vice and loathsome with crime ? They 
were cradled in sin. They have always breathed 
tainted air. What light has reached them, has 
come dim and straggling through the murky 
atmosphere of their being, and this has been almost 
wholly quenched by the necessities of poverty, 
the hardening influences of association and exam- 
ple, and the excesses of gross and beastial sensu- 
ality. Thousands, millions, are there in this coii- 
dition, seething together in sin, brooding over 
dark and fearful thoughts, feeding on the very 
offal of wickedness, clothed in the very rags of 
moral destitution. And what a vast work is to be 
accomplished in them ! When you have made 
your rules concerning pauperism, and decreed 
your laws against crime, and organized your 
societies for the suppression of vice, your power 
to affect this mass has not reached skin-deep, 
unless you have introduced elements that shall 
penetrate to the will^ and that shall elevate and 
guide the affections. Ere the true work is accom- 
plished, each one of that enormous multitude is to 
be raised to a consciousness of his responsibility. 



TRUE MANLINESS. 20T 

to a sense of his dignity. In that furnace of all 
vile passions that burns with a roaring flame in 
his heart, is to be kindled the fire of love and of 
devotion. His whole moral atmosphere is to be 
renovated. He who in his pursuit of evil hardly 
pauses for the barred dungeon, or the fearful gAJ 
lows, isi to be raised to such a height that if there 
were not a prison, or a gibbet, or a law in the 
land, he would not commit a wrong any more 
than he would cut off his right hand, pluck out 
his right eye, or take for his drink a draught of 
burning coals. 

Here then, in this mysterious nature within us, 
upon the throne of this will, in the home of these 
affections, is to be the great reformation. With- 
out that, all laws, all associations, are futile and 
shallow. When we look thus deeply into the hu- 
man heart, into this tossing sea of passions, these 
clamorous interests, these stormy, unbridled lusts 
— how insignificant do our prison walls seem, how 
impotent our "act to amend an act entitled an 
act !" As though by cunning, shifting, and ad- 
justment to every new sin, we thereby prevented 
sin ! Why, our very laws themselves, how are 
they abused ! — made a cloak for the very iniquity 
they were meant to crush — made a dagger for the 
very innocence they were ordained to shield. 
Under the sanction of the law, fraud plays its 



20S CIIKISTIANITY THE PERFECTION OF 

juggling tricks — under the sanction of the law, 
wealth tramples upon honest poverty — under the 
sanction of the law impudent libertinism ruins 
unprotected virtue, and crime goes unpunished, 
and innocence suffers. And until we rise to that 
law that is above all laws, when men shall do 
right for righteousness' sake, and love the good 
for itself alone — when at midnight, or in the de- 
sert, or on the lonely sea, he will deal fairly with 
his brother from pure motives, and live a virtuous 
life from the dictates of a virtuous heart; until a 
revolution like this takes place, I say, we must 
expect to find transgression and evil in the world. 
The Will and the Affections, what shall control 
these ? The human Will, headlong and irre- 
sistible — it has broken down barriers of eternal 
rock, and swept over deserts of frozen ice, and 
bridged torrents, and felled forests ; and what it 
is in the material world, it is in the moral, a prin- 
ciple that halts at no obstacle, and that moves in 
all things as the inner impulse dictates. The hu- 
man Affections, strong and unquenchable, how 
will they cling to whatever they cherish ! If 
they worship Ifammon what danger shall deter 
them — what wide sea or dreary waste shall pre- 
vent — nay, at what crime M'ill they revolt ? If 
they seek for Fame, who shall stand between 
them and it? What height so dizzy that. they 



TKUE MANLINESS. 209 

will turn back — what gulf so deep that they will 
shrink ? If their hunt is for Pleasure^ they care 
not for all its stings. They will drain the wine- 
cup though its drops are molten fire ; and even 
when they see the rnin approaching and hear the 
hoarse murmurs of the storm, they will sacrifice 
all to the bliss of the moment, and recklessly melt 
into the charmed delusion. 

I have thus endeavored to unfold to you the 
great work that is to be performed, ere that at 
which the laws aim, and which Reformers seek 
for, is accomplished — -the abolition of wrong and 
sin from human society. I have endeavored to 
unveil, to some extent, the human soul as its cir- 
cumstances actually are at this moment, all around 
aud within us, among high and low, rich and poor ; 
and have shown you the fearful sources of iniquity 
lying in the main-springs of all action — the Afi'ec- 
tions and the WilL 

And now, I ask, if that system which should 
come into the world, having for one of its objects 
the elevation of the soul to such a degree of good- 
ness and moral strength, as to destroy the will and 
the disposition to sin, I ask if that system is not 
worthy of being heralded by Angels — of being 
announced in a chorus of Glory to God in the 
Highest, of Peace and good-will to men ? Yes, 
Glory to God in the Highest ! Glory to Him in 



210 cHEisTtAxrrY the perfection ok 

the Great Design, and the Triumphant Means of 
accomplishing such a work ! Glory to Him that 
must result from the consummation of manhood 
purified from its sins, elevated above its sensu- 
ality, living the true and Divine life ! And on 
earth, Peace to men 1 Peace after the stormy 
warfare of passion and guilt. Peace by the old 
shrines of martyrdom and on the fields of ancient 
battle. Peace in the haunts of secret crime, and 
the homes of shameless transgression. Peace 
where clanked the prisoner's chain, and where 
groaned the doomsman's axe. Peace where rose 
the sobs of injured innocence and the pleadings 
of trampled, bleeding humanity. Peace in tlio 
individual soul, where all is in harmony with 
God, and where the end of human laws and out- 
ward institutions is not destroyed, but fidfilled — 
fulfilled in the highest and the deepest sense. 

And such a work, I say, Christianity came to 
accomplish. Here lies an explanation of its glo- 
rious prophecies and its blessed anticipations. In 
this consummation shall the valley be exalted and 
the mountain be brought low. In this shall the 
lamb lie doMm with the lion, and the leopard with 
the kid. In this shall the wilderness and the soli- 
tary place be glad, and the desert bud and blossom 
as the rose. 

Christianity is not anarchy — is not opposed to 



TEUE MANLINESS. 211' 

liiimaii iiistitntions ; it is above tliem, the great 
fountain from which they derive tlieir sanctity 
and their vigor- It does not aim, with rash hand^ 
to abolish all human laws at once. To do this 
would be commencing with the outward and pro- 
ceeding to the inward. But, as long as the inward 
is wrong, the outward will be needed as a support 
and a protection. To strip away the outward first, 
then, would be to leave society and man exposed 
to all the violence of unbridled passion and fear- 
less sin. But Christianity commences' with the 
inward. It lays the deepest stress upon the regu- 
lation of every inotive. It says a man that hates 
his brother is tainted with murder, and he who 
offends in one point of law is guilty of all. And 
when it has moulded the disposition, and reno- 
vated the heart and infused into it its spirit, then 
the outward law will not be destroyed, but it will 
melt away of itself — the necessity for it will be 
gone, its end will be reached, it will not be de- 
stroyed, it will be fulfilled. So long as there is 
need for the law, then, maintain the law ; but 
remember this — whenever there is such need, 
there is also needed something else. Christianity 
is needed' — ^the right afi'ections, the good will are 
needed. He is needed, who, when he comes, 
comes to elevate man above the necessity for out- 
ward laws— comes not to bring anarchy but free- 



212 CHRISTIANITT THE PERFECTION OF 

dom ; not violence, but love ; comes not to destroy, 
but to fulfil. 

My friends, it is but lately that we celebrated 
the anniversary of the advent of Christ and Chris- 
tianity. And it seemed peculiarly appropriate 
that the commemoration of that event should fall, 
as it did, upon the Sabbath ! Christmas upon the 
Sabbath ! Thus the memorial of Christ's birth 
was blended with the associations of his death. 
On that day, the angels who sat by his tomb, were 
in the company of those who proclaimed his 
advent. Through the flash of his resurrection 
morning shone the star that hung over his manger. 
The annunciation " Unto us is born a Prince and a 
Saviour," mingled with the triumphant anthem, 
" He is risen," 

But now what is this Christmas that we cele- 
brate ? Is it an historical advent merely that it 
proclaims, or is it an experimental advent also ? 
Is it confined to a peculiar day and season of the 
year, or is it for all souls, at all seasons ? " I 
travail in birih again," said the Apostle Paul, 
" until Christ be formed in you." What a depth 
of meaning is here ! This is the true advent of 
Christ. Oh ! to every soul is it Christmas morn- 
ing when Christ is thus formed within it — when 
his spirit enters as its teacher and guide. Then 
a chorus of angels is heard. Then light breaks 



TRUE MANLINESS. 218 

in like that which hung over Euphrata. Then 
all that is good in human laws and outward insti- 
tutions is fulfilled, for we become a law unto 
ourselves. 

Hearer, this is an individual work — back of the 
renovation of society lies the renovation of indi- 
viduals. It is a work of high and solemn, the 
highest, the most solemn responsibility. Let each 
one give heed to it ! 



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